Lessons learned from eavesdropping
5 valuable takeaways from the conversations of strangers
Several months back I was sitting at a table in the cafe of Barnes & Noble getting some work done when two older women sat down at the table next to me. We were close—I’m talking elbows almost touching close—and as they started chatting it was one of those situations where you literally cannot help but overhear the conversation (you know the ones). I continued typing and trying to mind my own business while they continued their discussion, and after a while I realized my fingers were no longer moving and I was intently listening to what they were saying.
I would feel bad about this (invasion of privacy! we’re taught not to eavesdrop!), except for the combination of their proximity + loudness… and, selfishly, the unexpected lessons I was learning by listening in.
They were probably in their mid-80s and clearly old friends catching up. At first they traded updates on the lives of their adult children (they are always our kids, even when they’re 50), what they had been up to lately (trying to clean out junk from the attic left by a husband who had promised to clean it out but passed away before he had the chance), neighborhood things (mail getting delivered to the wrong addresses), multiple scam attempts aimed at the elderly (this made me so angry). But the moment that stopped my typing fingers in their tracks was when they started talking about traveling.
They were saying how it was getting harder, but they still had a few trips planned — mostly time in Florida, and a couple of cruises. One of the women started recounting her last cruise experience, when she and her husband cruised to Aruba but she never got to see the island because as she came off the boat, she fell and broke her hip.
I winced.
She laughed.
As she retold the story about how much she was looking forward to the trip but never got to experience the lush landscapes or beaches or exotic cuisine, but instead ended up spending a few days in an Aruban hospital while their cruise ship departed without them—I wanted to cry, but she started giggling. And then her friend started giggling. And you know how that goes; before I knew it, they were both in a fit of hysterics.
And I couldn’t help but smile too.
Because here were two old friends, retelling a story that quite honestly sounded completely awful, their wrinkled hands swiping away joyful tears from their deeply lined faces as they laughed at the absurdity of it all. And I was suddenly struck with certainty: There is so much to learn from this.
There is no medicine quite like a conversation over coffee with a friend, and that medicine—and friendship—knows no age limit. In fact, both likely only get better with time.
Things may seem terrible in the moment (and in the case of breaking your hip in a foreign country after spending thousands of dollars on what was supposed to be a nice vacation, I have to imagine it truly was) — but someday, if we’re very lucky, we may be able to look back and laugh. Because life is sort of absurd, isn’t it?!
One of the gifts of getting older is the perspective it provides. When you’ve lived 85 or 90 years on the planet, you’ve experienced a whole lot and there’s not a ton of time left ahead of you and things that might’ve taken you down as a younger person are no longer a big deal. Even when you’re 35 or 40, think of the perspective you’ve gained since the time you were, say, 20 years old.
And now for one more eavesdropping story to round out the lessons here (I realize this is starting to look like a pattern, but people just like to sit near me and speak at a loud volume, I guess! haha). More recently, I was grabbing a quick and very rare solo lunch while my kids were spending the afternoon at their grandparents’ house and my husband was working.
This time, there was a group of three women sitting next to me: one was probably in her late 40s and the other two were older — maybe coworkers, or aunts. The younger one was lamenting about how she was going through a hard time with her teenage son, who was taking every opportunity to snipe at her and make her feel as uncool as possible (note to teenagers, your parents invented cool, k?). The two older women were giving her advice which seemed to make the younger women feel more hopeful. At one point the younger woman recounted a night recently during which she was upstairs watching one of “her” shows in bed while her husband was downstairs watching a game, and her son came into her room and snarkily said “what’s the point of even being married?” To which the two older women burst into laughter and, without missing a beat, interjected “That’s the reason you ARE still married!” And I thought YASSSS and was giving the entire table high fives in my head because of eavesdropping lessons #4 and #5:
There is a lot to be said from seeking counsel from the older women in your life. They may have a (hilarious and true!) perspective that you hadn’t thought of, and that will infuse hope into whatever you’re going through.
Never underestimate a group of women. When we come together, we can solve a whole hell of a lot: from major world issues to everyday challenges. And if we can’t solve it, at the very least we’ll come away laughing.
Not that I will actively promote listening in on other people’s conversations, but the next time you’re seated too close to a table of women (especially if they’re older women)… you just may walk away a little bit better than you arrived.
Have a wonderful long weekend, friends!