I've always believed that the smallest moments deserve the closest attention. From the slight change in a person's face when you mention something important to them, to the glance someone steals when they think no one is watching, I've always been fascinated by the details most people overlook. For nearly two years, I had placed one relationship under a microscope convinced that if I looked closely enough, I could understand another person. But somewhere in my journey, it became clear that I had been studying the wrong person all along.
As a child, I loved kaleidoscopes. I loved how a small turn could rearrange the same pieces into entirely new images, even though the pattern itself never really changed. I began treating memories the same, that if I examined them at the right angle, the pattern would make sense. It felt as though I wasn't collecting memories, I was collecting evidence.
A 30-second conversation could occupy my thoughts for days as i’d replay every shift in his body and every change in his voice. Id convinced myself that if I remembered every little detail, I could make him predictable. And if he was predictable, I could have trust in my understanding.
The more I searched for an explanation, the more I had to accept something I didn’t want to: sometimes people don’t even understand themselves well enough to explain why they do what they do.
I kept asking myself the same question: Why did it bother me so much? Eventually I realized it was never really about him. It was about my need for things to make sense. Finding out more about myself was when I realized that I was truly observing him through my own lens of the world with hope, love, and expectation. My attention isn’t revealing him, it’s revealing who I am as a person who values being intentional with the care for others
And it wasn't that he completed me, it was that he introduced me to myself.
One personal memory stays with me. During a plane ride home from Kauai, I spent nearly eight hours writing and rewriting a birthday card for him. Landing home, the only thing on my mind was how I could make him feel special. I drove around Salt Lake City collecting small gifts I knew he would like, including bracelets from Hawaii and an inside joke only we would know. When he opened that card, I watched as his eyebrows raised, then softened. His eyes squinted, then opened; his head turned slightly, and his lips turned up. I didn't even have time to speak before he pulled me into a hug and in that moment I knew that I was truly capable of making another person feel deeply seen. Looking back, what I remember most about that day wasn't whether he understood everything that I was trying to say in that card. It's that I devoted eight hours to finding the right words because giving people that kind of attention had become second nature.
Eventually, I was faced with a choice: I could continue searching for answers that I may never get, or I could accept that not every unanswered question has an answer waiting to be found. I couldn’t choose to make someone grow, I could only choose when to move forward. For the first time, I moved forward; without the feeling of familiarity.
In science class, I learned that microscopes see things that are invisible to the naked eye. The longer I looked through the microscope, the more clearly I saw myself. I’ll continue to ask my questions, not because I expect certainty, but because curiosity is how I’m learning everyday. My job isn’t to solve people and find all the answers, it's to meet them where they are—and to continue being curious about the person I'm becoming