The biggest communication problem is we do not listen to understand. We listen to reply.” -Stephen R. Covey

My Interpretation: I think one of the loneliest experiences a person can have is realizing people know your story without actually knowing you. Not because they are malicious. Not because they are trying to hurt you. But because most people build entire narratives from a handful of details & then never bother checking to see if they are right. I think that is why Noah Kahan’s songs Dashboard & The Great Divide hit me the way they do.

---

Most people hear songs completely different than I do.

That is probably… unsurprising.

I have never been particularly gifted at hearing what everyone else hears.

---

When I listen to Dashboard, people often hear a woman leaving.

→ A breakup.

→ A small town talking.

→ The dog in the passenger seat.

→ The assumptions.

→ The rumors.

→ The judgment.

 

What I hear is freedom.

What I hear is every person who finally chose themselves after years of being trapped inside someone else’s version of who they were supposed to be.

 

The narrator never actually knows the woman’s story.

That is the point.

 

He watches her leave.

He watches the town speculate.

He watches people create explanations.

 

But nobody actually asks her.

Nobody stops to wonder if maybe she was saving herself.

Maybe she was escaping something.

Maybe she was growing.

Maybe she was finally choosing a life that fit.

 

The woman driving away becomes a villain to some people.

A mystery to others.

A cautionary tale to the rest.

 

& every time I hear it, I find myself thinking:

Good for her.

 

Because I know what it feels like to have people create stories about you without asking for your chapter first.

I know what it feels like to become a character in someone else’s narrative.

 

⤷ The difficult one.

⤷ The emotional one.

⤷ The anxious one.

⤷ The quiet one.

⤷ The dramatic one.

⤷ The one who left.

⤷ The one who stayed.

⤷ The one who should have done something differently.

 

People are remarkably creative when they have limited information.

The problem is that their creativity is usually mistaken for truth.

---

& then there is The Great Divide.

To me, The Great Divide is what happens when someone finally stops assuming.

 

It feels like standing across a canyon from someone you have known for years & suddenly realizing you have never actually seen the landscape they were standing in.

It feels like compassion.

Like curiosity.

Like humility.

Like looking at someone you love & realizing there are entire battles they fought that you never noticed.

 

There is something incredibly powerful about saying:

“I do not think I understood.”

 

Not because it erases the past.

Not because it fixes everything.

But because it creates space for truth.

 

The older I get, the less interested I am in being right.

I am far more interested in understanding.

 

➜ Understanding why people became who they became.

➜ Understanding what happened before I arrived.

➜ Understanding the grief.

➜ The fear.

➜ The trauma.

➜ The survival.

➜ The resilience.

---

Because every person is carrying something.

⤷ Some carry it openly.

⤷ Some carry it quietly.

⤷ Some become experts at hiding it.

 

The truth is that life has handed me a lot of grief.

A lot of loss.

A lot of misunderstandings.

 

A lot of moments where I felt like I was standing on one side of a canyon trying to explain myself to people on the other side.

 

Yelling.

 

Waving my arms.

 

Trying desperately to communicate something that never quite made it across.

Sometimes the distance was grief.

Sometimes it was trauma.

Sometimes it was anxiety.

Sometimes it was simply that two people were looking at the same situation through completely different lenses.

 

& honestly?

Sometimes nobody was wrong.

They just could not see what the other person could see.

 

That is what these songs remind me of.

Not heartbreak.

Not romance.

Not even leaving.

---

They remind me that most people are walking around carrying entire worlds that nobody else can see.

& maybe the greatest gift we can give each other is curiosity.

 

Not judgment.

Not assumptions.

Not stories.

Curiosity.

 

The willingness to ask.

The willingness to listen.

The willingness to admit we might not have all the information.

 

Because every now & then, if we are lucky, we meet people who do that naturally.

People who listen before they decide.

People who ask before they assume.

People who allow us to be fully human.

Messy.

Complicated.

Contradictory.

Growing.

Those people are rare.

But when you find them, you hold onto them.

 

Because being understood is one of the most healing experiences a person can have.

& maybe being understood is one of the greatest gifts we can receive.

Maybe being willing to understand someone else is one of the greatest & humbling acts of love.

 

 

Xoxo ♡