My husband has a talk today, and he was nervous as he left. I made up a couple of jokes for him to use, but I doubt he will. He's better at public speaking than he thinks, and sometimes transcends himself outright, like his speech when our older daughter got married. He's full of surprises. In fact, people are full of surprises, and that is a good thing, because we tend to diminish people in our assessments of them, and the surprise reminds me that I don't "know" the other person as well as I think I do, and expecting certain behavior is not giving the other person a chance. I'd not like it if someone did that to me - in fact, it undoubtedly happens, but I'm usually unaware of it.
It's sort of like when I had the colonoscopy Tuesday, and the nurse was required to ask me if I was abused, and I told her I'd run safehouses for battered women for twelve years, and about the time a batterer barged right in the hospital room of a client and threatened me. Luckily, security arrived quickly, but he was about to beat me up for "giving his wife ideas". Radical ideas such as she had a right not to be hit. So then I wasn't just an annonymous 64 year old lady, but a person who had more stories than the nurses, and they eased up and we chatted and laughed. You never know who you're talking to, and you might be surprised if you left your preconceptions at the door and just see what shows up. Life is definitely more interesting that way.
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