Listening

Listening.

For a person with ADHD, it can be very difficult to sit and listen to someone. It’s not that we do not wish to listen, nor is it that we do not have a long enough attention span. With ADHD, you often find yourself being consumed with a new thought as soon as it pops in to your head. Sure, the original topic is still in your mind, but this new thought is so consuming that you have to address it, or you may explode.

At least that’s my experience.

Everyone in society has a problem with truly listening. Unlike ADHD, where the connection may not be clear, the majority of the world makes a clear connection in every conversation they have.

To themselves.

I was no different. Even after I received treatment for my ADHD, I still struggled with interupting my friends, and I almost always turned the conversation to myself. Just like everyone else, I took more interest in myself, and if it was not about me, I only listened to the parts of people’s stories that mattered to me. If it did not affect me, then I chose to ignore it.

Then I made a friend that forced me to change that.

He was a nice kid. He was a little weird, but it takes that kind of person to be a great RA. We're all a little crazy, but we make connections with people. Just like most RA's, my friend was great at finding connections with people and starting up conversations. Conversation was easy with him.

Except for one thing.

He paused at the most inopportune times.

I’ll tell a story to give an example.

It was not long after I met this kid. We were walking around Belmont’s campus on a Sunday afternoon, just as we always did in the beginning of freshman year. For anyone who knows what a college campus looks like, you would know exactly what we saw on a Sunday afternoon. No one was on the quad, and the entire campus seemed to be sleeping.

“The campus is so-“ my friend paused.

“Dead,” I finished his sentence, assuming that my interpretation of campus was the same as his.

“What?” he seemed genuinely shocked. I furrowed my brows in confusion. Were my thoughts not shared by everyone around me? He sighed and looked at the rose garden.

“I was going to say beautiful.”

For the longest time, I finished sentences for the people I thought I knew best. I finished sentences for people I didn’t care about as well. Actually, I finished everyone’s sentences.

Not sandwiches though.

I know everyone was thinking about that...

Anyways, I stayed friends with this boy for the majority of my college career. And as I got to know him better, I started to recognize the moments when he paused, and I noticed the moments when he didn’t pause. Over time, I started to speak in a similar cadence, just a little bit faster.

Later on in our friendship, I asked him what he thought was special about me, why we would still be friends after awkward romance drama, many years of school, and residence life. He said:

“You listen. With everyone else, I have to talk fast, just so I can get it out. But with you…I don’t have to do that. It’s nice.”

The funny thing was that I was not even trying.

I was just his friend.

I cared.

As time went on, and I moved forward with my life, I started to apply that same care and understanding that I gave to him to everyone else in my life. I would let my pauses become longer, and I would wait to hear what others had to say. Sometimes they were willing to share their lives with me. Sometimes they were not open to conversation with me.

Regardless of their reaction to my attention, I noticed just how much I heard in the voices of those around me.

I heard what people actually cared about.

I heard the actual stories of the lives around me.

I heard what truly connected me to everyone else.

It just took a little patience, and a lot more attention than my brain ever desired.

I am grateful for my friend with his slow Georgia voice. I am grateful that God would give me a friend that would teach me how to listen, just by letting me love him. In a soft and quiet way, God showed me how much love was in my heart. God let me see what I could potentially give to others.

We all want to be listened to.

We all want to be loved.

I think the best way to love someone is to listen to them.

Hear the stories.

And just like a campus on a Sunday afternoon, they are all beautiful. 

You just need to take the time to listen.