I am so grateful for being my father’s daughter in that I have never met a stranger. This gift, and it truly is a gift, has served me my entire life, even when I didn’t realize. Rather than being scared of personal rejection (which I actually am), I take the more positive approach which is “what is the worst thing that can happen”? If there is no interest or reaction to my reaching out, I simply move on. However, if I don’t at least try, I could be shortchanging myself.
While there have literally been dozens of instances during my current adventure, I want to briefly share 3. While in Florence I got friendly with the front desk staff. One of the ladies in particular who lives in Pompei, was there for training. It turns out she was well connected to people in Sorrento where I was heading next. I asked if she knew anyone that could pick me up at the bus station in Naples and drive me to Sorrento. We connected on WhatsApp after she finished training and returned home. The gift of feeling comfortable enough during my stay to ask was that I not only found someone to pick me up in Naples, but he took me on an amazing tour of Positano and Raffaello. As if that wasn’t enough, he was able to offer a great price to drive me from Sorrento to Civitavecchia where I was staying the night before the cruise. Had that not happened, I was going to have to take 3 trains and a taxi with my 2 large pieces of luggage and a heavy backpack which would have made for a very long and tiring day as opposed to a fun and interesting 3 ½ hour drive.
Before I booked the cruise I am on from Rome to Miami, I joined a Facebook page for the trip. For over a year I connected with people that were going to be on the ship. By the time I boarded, I was meeting all kinds of awesome people that I recognized from their posts. It is a different experience boarding not knowing anyone vs. looking forward to putting faces to names. I chose to create an event for whoever wanted to meet the first day and 25+ people showed up. How cool is that?
When in Tenerife we happened upon some local artists selling their creations. A lady was selling something pretty neat that I thought a couple friends would like. I was excited because I love supporting local artists. When asked if she made them she said no, she was helping women that made them. I let her know there was something special about her energy that I couldn’t describe and we had a really nice chat. She asked if we could hug when it was time to go and we were both in tears by the time we parted.
I have countless examples of what I call “Gd winks”. The bottom line is I start random conversations and am not embarrassed to ask anything. It may go nowhere, and it may take me somewhere I could never have imagined. I’m grateful that in most cases, at a minimum, it has yielded even a brief interaction I would not otherwise have had.
