Why does every conversation I have circle back to work?

You steer every conversation back to work because it is the ground you feel surest on — the place you are fluent, the thing most alive in you right now. It is not vanity; it is a kind of narrowing. But the people who want to know how you actually are keep getting a project update instead of you, and slowly they stop asking. When work becomes the only territory you can speak from, it is usually a sign the rest of you has gone a little quiet from neglect. There is nothing wrong with caring about your work. The problem is when it is the only door you know how to open, because the people closest to you are trying to reach a person, not a job. Try this: in your next real conversation, when you feel the pull to turn it toward work, resist it once and answer a personal question honestly instead. How you actually are, what you have been thinking about, something true that is not a task. It will feel oddly bare. That bareness is you, out from behind the work, letting someone actually meet you.