There is something interesting about returning to work after vacation.
Everyone is asking the same question:
“How was your vacation?”
My answer was simple.
“Good. I got a lot of work done.”
“What work?”
“Well… I finished a children’s book, finished an adult book, and worked on some music.”
The look I received made me laugh.
“WHAT? You write?”
“Yes. I’m also a writer and lyricist.”
Apparently, this was news.
Most of my colleagues know me simply as an early childhood educator. And that makes sense. At work, that is who I am.
I have also deliberately kept my creative life separate from my professional one. I don’t promote my books or music at the daycare, and I don’t generally connect with colleagues through my creative social media. There are boundaries between the different parts of our lives, and I think those boundaries can be healthy.
But the conversation made me think about how little we sometimes know about the people we encounter every day.
We tend to know people through the role in which we meet them.
The teacher is a teacher.
The cashier is a cashier.
The bus driver is a bus driver.
The nurse is a nurse.
Our colleague is simply the person working beside us.
Yet behind those roles are entire lives.
Perhaps the cashier paints.
Perhaps the bus driver plays music.
Perhaps the nurse writes poetry.
Perhaps the quiet person sitting beside us on the metro is working on a novel.
And perhaps the daycare teacher goes home and writes books and lyrics.
We are all more than the small part of ourselves that other people happen to encounter.
That doesn’t mean we need to reveal everything about ourselves. Some parts of our lives are public, some are professional, and some remain wonderfully private.
But perhaps it is worth remembering that the same is true of everyone else.
Every ordinary person we pass carries experiences, talents, dreams, struggles and stories we may know nothing about.
My colleague’s surprise made me smile.
But it also left me with a simple thought:
No single role contains the whole person.
Sometimes all it takes is an ordinary question—
“What did you do on your vacation?”
—to discover another part of someone’s story. ❤️
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