"How was class baby?" Amir texted me as soon as I finished all my classes for the day. I was stretching my body on a counter chair at Starbucks and keeping myself awake since I want to finish my in-class assignments for Online Journalism while waiting for the traffic jam to die down.

"It was fine sayang", I answered briefly. There was nothing much that happened during the day other than having two lectures and two in-class assignments. The mediocre Communication student life I would say; writing and brainstorming all day long. Nothing interesting for me to tell him. He was my senior anyway, he had been through this too.

My phone beeped again. Expecting an "Okayyy" or shifting the conversation to a new topic, Amir said,

"Fine je babyyyy?"

Oh wow, this is new to me. I would not say that guys hate to listen to our rants but most of the time they are forced to listen. This is the first time that I was asked to elaborate more about my day although it's plain and unseasoned. I continued to talk about the in-class assignments that I had and my attempt on completing it before we go for dinner together. It speaks a lot on how he genuinely cares about my wellbeing in general and makes me feel loved.

We always overlook on the importance of asking people how their day went and just let them talk about it. It may look simple because we usually use it for conversation starters all the time but it does help a lot especially to check on our loved ones. It helps to uplift their spirits after going through the same thing over and over again every single day, and calm them down and give them an outlet to vent when they are having a rough one. The key point here is to just listen with empathy and compassion.

This act of Amir may look small, but I am definitely taking note and giving him credit on how he always reminds me of the values in life that I may overlook on how big the role is in our lives. I am happy that I have a partner that would always let me talk, and I hope that the ample space given by him will not make me selfish to also give him an outlet to speak up too.

So, how are you? Let's talk!

Xx,
M.