Simply Living and Simply Talking?

I was reading this blog lately and I was reading the post about how she doesn't really like to talk that much. 

And it made me think about myself.

I've always loved to write.  And when I was a kid, I strongly preferred writing to talking.  Well, let me clarify that.  I didn't mind talking to grown-ups.  Or people who were older than I was.  But people in my class? No. I didn't love to talk to kids my own age.

Not that I thought that I was better than them.  I just couldn't think of anything to say to them.  And so often, kids were already talking to each other and I didn't want to have to interrupt, especially if I couldn't think of anything to say in the first place.  But I never had the problem with people older than me.  I could always think of something to say to them.  And they (probably) humored me and talked to me and I loved that.  People from my grade school/junior high/high school probably would describe me as nice, but quiet.  (Or weird and quiet.  I'm not sure.)

College and early adulthood was hard for me.  Now, I was around my peers a lot.  And I also had the pressure of wanting to meet someone to go out with/to marry/to have babies with, which was more situations where you know, you had to talk to someone.  I retreated to my studies or my work and would sometimes go days without having a social conversation.

Things got a little better as I muddled through my mid-twenties.  And then, at 28, I met Mr. Simple.  And you are thinking "Oh, and he is really gregarious, etc. and brought you out of your shell." Nope.  He knows LOTS of people and so he is forever running into people he knows, and so he is a friendly person, but in most ways, he is just like me.  He isn't the person who starts a conversation in a group.  He doesn't have long phone conversations. 

But I liked talking to him :) And we fell in love and got married.  But I still wasn't a big talker.  Certainly not in groups.  Certainly not in front of people I didn't know.  Certainly not in groups of people my age.

And then I had kids.  And you are thinking "Oh, and that is when things changed."

And you would be right. 

Somehow, once I became a mom, I talked to other moms.  About all kinds of stuff. Stuff I never imagined that I would talk about with other people.  And that was a great first step.  I finally was talking to my "peers."

And I'd go places and I felt like I fit in more because I had something in common with most people in the room.  I had a child.  (But trust me, I'm not one of those people who would talk ONLY about my kid at say, a Christmas business party or whatever.) But something about becoming a mom just made me more comfortable about being around other people. 

Also, at the same time I had my first child, I become a computer software trainer.  And almost every day for 4 years, I was up in front of people talking.  And I was the expert! I was the person that had answers to their questions (well, I didn't always have the answers, but most of the time I did!) After 4.5 years of that, I had lost any hesitation about talking in front of a group.

So now, 12 years after I had my first child?

Well, my kids, for sure, think I'm a talker.  In fact, they talk about how embarrassing it is that I carry on a 3-4 minute conversation with the clerk at Target or how I'll sit and chat with someone that I just met at Farmers Market. 

And I'd have to say I'm a talker too.  I love, of course, talking to people who live a similar lifestyle to mine, but I love talking to people who don't too.  I just love to hear how people approach life.  How they think. How they get through the day.

Of course, I love to write too.  I've written here for a few years.  I've written in journals off and on over the years.  I've written stories and I've written poems. 

But I think at this point, if I had to choose between writing and talking, I'd choose talking.