When Small Talk Became Something More
Nadia L. Santos
It started during the quietest season of the world.
The year was 2021. Everything felt distant, people stayed inside their homes, conversations moved to screens, and silence became the new normal.
For her, that silence felt heavy at first. As a teacher, she was used to classrooms filled with voices, questions, and movement. But now, even the connection had to be scheduled through a screen.
One evening, almost without planning, she went live on Instagram.
“Small Talk with Me,” she titled it.
At first, she thought it was just something light—something to break the silence. She invited former students, friends, and colleagues. Some were now professionals, others were abroad.
“Kumusta kayo?” she would ask.
And slowly, stories began to unfold.
One former student smiled through the screen.
“Ma’am, I never thought I’d become a writer.”
She paused. “Really? Why not?”
“I always thought I wasn’t good enough,” the student admitted.
She didn’t expect that answer. And for a moment, she just listened.
In another session, a young professional abroad quietly said,
“Ma’am, it’s hard… I thought being here would fix everything, but sometimes I still feel lost.”
Those words stayed with her longer than she expected.
At first, she thought she was only hosting conversations.
But slowly, something shifted.
This was no longer just talk.
It was present.
It was listening.
It was a connection in a time when everything felt disconnected.
As episodes continued, she noticed something she had not seen before.
People were not just sharing achievements.
They were sharing becoming.
And in their becoming, she began to see her own heart differently, too.
There were nights she ended the live quietly, sitting alone afterward.
One night, she whispered to herself, almost surprised,
“Lord… I didn’t know this is what listening could do.”
Because in listening, she was also being changed.
Not loudly.
But gently.
Over time, “Small Talk” stopped feeling like a simple online session.
It became a space she didn’t fully name at first.
A space where stories mattered.
Where voices were heard.
Where people were reminded, they were not alone.
And somehow, even in that space, she began to realize something deeper:
Maybe purpose does not always arrive in big assignments.
Maybe it begins with simple availability.
In showing up.
In asking questions.
In saying, “Tell me your story.”
As one episode ended, she sat back and thought quietly:
What started as small talk… was never small at all.
And in that realization, she didn’t feel like she had created something.
She felt like she had been included in something already happening.
Something bigger than her.
Something quieter than applause.
But something real.
And before she closed her laptop that night, she whispered, “Thank You, Lord… for letting me listen.”
Not because everything was understood.
But because something inside her finally was.
