I told her the humiliating truth and she didn’t reduce me for it

Dear Delyara, I told her I had been feeling behind in life. Not in a poetic way. In the ugly comparison way. The school-gate, social-media, LinkedIn, marriage, money, age, energy, who-became-what kind of way. The kind of truth that makes you feel small while saying it because you know it isn’t your wisest self speaking, but it is still your real one on bad days. I expected her to fix it too fast. To tell me not to compare. To flatten it with one of those kind sensible sentences that miss the blood in the feeling. She didn’t. She listened like I hadn’t become shallower or less dignified because envy and sadness had touched me too. That kind of listening is rare. It made me feel less ashamed of being human.