I have a music enthusiast for a daughter. I notice how she feels the music through singing the lyrics, dancing to the rhythm, humming the tune. While sitting with her recently, she told me her favorite song is "Just the Way You Are", to which I enthusiastically inquired "Oh, Billy Joel"? She looked at me like I had just spoken in a foreign language and spontaneously replied, "eh, Bruno Mars". Ah, lightbulb moment!
At that moment I saw the vast in between, as my senses were upswept with the pullback of the generational gap. Yet, in this in between, or gap, my young inner girl was meeting her at that moment with something that was important to her. I recognized the similarities between the songs we both enjoy, which belt loving someone just as they are. Isn't it curious how in meeting someone where they are, we tend to scroll through our own bank of experience, whether met immediately or not, to come up with a connection?
From this space of connection, I enjoy honoring individuality through expression. Regardless of the relationship, we relate to each other through the same human emotions, and in this space of being able to meet and feel commonly, the empathy joins us together and maintains connection.
