December Daily: pleasantly surprised

castiron -- something that you're pleasantly surprised to have in your life.

Over the past decade (starting in my midforties), I began to discover that I'm a lot less shy than I used to be.

Apparently I can make my voice heard in a roomful of people. I can do brief public speaking (competently, if not with any sort of actorly flair) with or without preparation. I can negotiate with authority figures. I can access a sort of Host persona that allows me to meet and greet strangers without undue suffering, though it certainly saps my energy.

My job interviews are getting to be more like conversations. I've even had the experience of getting five minutes into a phone interview and learning enough about the position to say, "Hey, from what you're telling me, this isn't for me, so I don't want to waste your time." That would have been hard to imagine ten years ago.

I suspect that this is partly age ("yeah, I did this before and I didn't die") and partly parenthood. Parenthood actually rewards you for making an effort to just by damn get what you require, which is not something that the culture offers women very often.



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