In 2007, Crystal was serving on military duty overseas when she received a Red Cross message that her mother had hung herself. When she returned overseas from emergency leave, she discovered that her tour of duty had been extended. Worse yet, for the next seven months, she faced repeated situations of sexual assault by a person who held a leadership position in her own unit.
And so, let's consider that we don't misread each other because we don't care. We misread each other because we've been leaning so hard into our own patterns — the way we connect, the way we process, the way we show love — that we never stop to ask what the woman across from us needs to actually receive it.