A Part, Not The Whole

Descriptions have a curious tendency to settle. What begins as an observation can slowly become something more fixed. A part can begin to stand in for the whole person.

"You never liked that.", "She's always been quiet.", "He's a lawyer."

The difficulty may not be that somebody sees a part of us. The difficulty may be when that part becomes the whole story.

I find myself wondering whether this is something we all do. How often do we continue relating to people through older versions of who they were? How often do we mistake familiarity for understanding?

Perhaps every description contains the desire to understand another person, and the reality that no description can ever contain the entirety of them.