The linguistic efficiency was genuinely something to behold. "Still figuring things out?" Five words. And packed into them: are you still single, and is your career situation stable, and should I be concerned about your entire trajectory as a human being. All of it. One phrase. Delivered with a sympathetic little head tilt.
I said yes. Because what else. Yes, I'm still figuring things out. It's true in every sense she meant and several she didn't.
What I'm also still figuring out is why this information was required within thirty seconds of me saying hello. Not two minutes in. Not after some pleasantries. Thirty seconds. We had barely completed the greeting before she needed a full status report on my romantic and professional life, compressed into a question designed to sound gentle while extracting maximum data.
So we both left with unsolved mysteries. She never learned what I'm figuring out. I never learned why she needed to know so fast, so early, so efficiently. Two questions, no answers, and a plate of snacks between us. Standard family function.