(You) got to have faith!

A Reflection on shared experiences (and growing old)

So this week I have been in training with 2 people from Mexico (in their 30s) and 2 people my parents age from the USA (Texas and Kentucky) and 2 people from France (in their 40s).  The weird thing to me is that it is not weird to go to basketball games, go out to dinner, and be in training with people older and much older than me.  I don't feel like a kid anymore around older adults. It just dawned on me this past year, maybe it has to do with my job...

It started me thinking about shared experiences and how whenever I see any of these people again, I will be able to talk to them about what took place during training and we will have something to talk about.  It is an interesting concept because before these two training weeks if I had met them on the street, we would have had nothing in common and stared blankly at each other.  Now I know that one guy is a Christmas tree farmer in his spare time and one women loves Dr. Who.  We could talk about these things.  Having a shared experience gives a person a platform to jump off of and start a conversation. 

I am very reluctant to talk to people unless I have that something to talk about.  My personality NEEDS to have everything planned out and several different options.   I cringe at awkward silence during a conversation.  It hurts my brain to think of things to say on the fly. I trend towards what I know; I talk a lot about myself.  Around new people I find myself listening a whole lot more. 

Which brings me to another point, listening.  I have learned over the past year or so that most people just want to me listened to, they don't care what you have to say, they just want someone to talk to.  I have listened to many stories at my job this last year.  People seem grateful just to have someone to talk to.  They are mostly interesting stories (not the women I sat next to on the plane - she was SO SO SO boring, all she wanted to do was to tell me not to have children because all they want to do is take your money and not respect you... she told me she wished she had never had her son because he had tied her down).   There are several things I could say about that, maybe in a different post.

Reading today: Hannah's post on real friendships
Eating: pasta in white sauce, salad
Drinking: Water & Chai tea (with milk and sugar - bleh bleh bleh - I can't wait to go home and have some tea with honey and cream (or half and half)).
Pet Peeve: no tea offering at the hotel, cheap plasticware (I break the fork tines)
Looking foward to: my own bed
Funny moment: doing the cha cha slide in my hotel room last night.  Here is the story: I was studying for my exam tomorrow and I had been studying for two hours and I had sat through 9 hours of training (sat being the key word there - I am used to walking around the plant).  The song came up on shuffle and so I needed to stretch anyhow, so why not dance along. ha ha.  It woke me up and started my brain thinking again. :)