The Armor Doesn’t Come Off. It Moves.

It was a Saturday afternoon and I needed to drop off my dry cleaning.

I greeted the owner and set my suits and shirts on the counter, counting them out – one, two, three.

While he filled out my ticket, I made some small talk. He was closing up soon, so I asked what he’d do with the rest of his day.

He told me he’d spend it with his wife.

That opened into a long conversation – his arranged marriage back in India and what’s kept it alive for thirty years.

I had no real plans that day. I was in no rush to leave. He could tell. And he kept going.

I held his gaze and smiled. Peppered him with questions. Labeled the emotions as they surfaced – “It sounds like you care deeply for your wife.” and “It seems like you two have worked very hard to build what you have.”

And I was genuinely curious. That part was real.

In the one year of dropping off my dirty laundry, I’d never talked to him for more than two minutes.

Today I got his life story and gave him nothing back.

The Improv Room

I’d recently signed up for improv classes at the suggestion of my therapist.

I thought it sounded ridiculous – what’s the point of grown-ups acting?

The idea made me uncomfortable. I didn’t want to be put in that room.

I feared what other people would think of me. I looked down on the theater crowd. And I didn’t think I was funny.

Which was exactly why I needed to go.

In the first class we learned the basics and started acting out scenes. There was little direction – just two people and one word of inspiration.

Ours was oysters. We acted out a scavenging scene and my partner carried the whole thing.

As he set the scene, I bounced it right back to him.

“Go over there?”

“It sounds like you’ve done this before.”

“It seems like you really know your brines.”

Every time it was my turn to set the stage – I froze.

After the scene the instructors had feedback for me: I was great at agreeing and going along with whatever my partner built. But I never made a statement. I never once said how I wanted the world to look.

They were right.

It hit me sitting there – I was protecting myself. A statement can be rejected. A question can’t.

And it isn’t just improv. I’m agreeable to a fault – as vanilla as they come.

The Taco Bar

Not long after, I took a solo trip to a beach town I’d been considering moving to. I wanted to see if I could picture a life there.

On a call with my parents, I mentioned the trip. Thirty minutes later my phone rang. Our family friend’s daughter lived there, and she was open to dinner.

I hesitated. I hung up thinking my mother was scheming for grandkids again.

Scheme or not, I texted her.

We met up at a local taco joint and sat at the bar.

I was at ease with her almost immediately. I could hold her eyes without the old urge to look away, to be anywhere else. I was present enough to actually listen.

The techniques were still there – but as a tool to draw her out, not a crutch to carry the conversation. We laughed. We bounced back and forth, trading stories about how we came to be.

She told me about joining a run club expecting a casual walking group and getting actual running instead. That drifted into health habits.

I tiptoed around my relationship with exercise. Triathlons came up somehow, and I felt myself hedge. I didn’t want to tell her I was an Ironman – I didn’t want to come off as arrogant. But I didn’t want to lie either.

The truth came out sideways. Reluctant and minimized. I was caught between hiding and honesty, squirming in the middle.

The protector I thought I caught had just changed clothes mid-conversation.

As I sit at my desk writing this, an uneasiness seeps in.

I can sense there’s a part of me lurking.

It feels like I’m trying to observe the very thing I’m observing from. Always one step behind.

How do I tell awareness that dissolves a protector from awareness that becomes one?