The Two Halves We Keep Apart

Nobody has ever asked for my time to talk about a parent who is unwell, or a problem at home.

But it comes up. Somebody starts with a difficult manager, or a decision they have been going back and forth on for weeks, and twenty minutes in it turns out there is a parent in hospital, or a marriage that has gone quiet, or a child they are worried about. It was never why they got in touch.

It was in the room the whole time.

This was happening long before any of it had a name. People I worked with, and people I knew outside work, would start on one thing and end up somewhere else entirely. I understood eventually why. Nobody was going to hear about it from me, and nobody was being judged for any of it.

We keep these things in separate boxes. The bad quarter and the bad year at home are being carried by the same person, and most of the weight comes from pretending they are not.

What I have noticed is that people rarely leave with a plan. They leave calmer, and clearer about what needs attention first. Not because I told them anything. Because they had finally said the whole of it out loud, in one place, to someone who was not keeping score.

One conversation where you do not have to keep the two halves apart.