Compassion as loving non-interference

What we can learn when we shift from “fixing” to “witnessing,” 12.02.21

When I was in my early 20s and clinically depressed (although I didn’t know that’s what it was at the time), I worked a predictably depressing job with a predictably depressing commute. The highlight of my days was often the carpool ride to and from work, with a woman in her 40s whose name I can no longer remember.

She had chin-length wavy blonde hair and a fashion sense that conveyed competence in the workplace. She was kind and no-nonsense and had that motherly warmth that I missed, being so far away from my own mom. She was married and had a daughter who was about 10 at the time.

On the long dreary drives in the early darkness, I would occasionally share tidbits from my lackluster life: my angst, my confusions, my anxieties about my then-sometimes-boyfriend. This boy and I spent a lot of time being disappointed with each other. We weren’t always that good to each other, and I was a needy, depressed mess, and we were both too lonely and insecure to definitively call it quits. My carpool mom would just listen and nod sympathetically, her eyes on the rain-slicked roads. She was cheerful by nature, but she rarely commented on my various predicaments, other than to ask a question or two, and she never gave advice.