Missed Opportunities

At a recent party we attended I found myself in like next to a gent I had met before, didn’t know his name and he probably didn’t know mine, but he said Hello! I’ve always been kinda….socially inept, worried that I won’t know what to say. I said, what have you been doing, just recently? He said, “I spoke at a funeral”.
So I said brightly, “Oh! I always think a funeral is one of the least stressful times to speak, everyone is already so emotional.”He and his wife politely agreed and we moved on.

How obtuse. I could have thought of him, instead of myself, I could have said “oh? was it for someone very close to you? I’m sorry! “ And then he could have spoken about his loss or his speech, which was obviously what he really wanted to talk about.

And often, when someone asks me a question which,I ought to realize, is actually about the inquirer, I launch into a long defense—of myself!

I can be touchy. Yesterday a friend was watching as I mounted my horse from the ground, and he said, “How much longer do you think you’ll be able to do THAT?” I really got pissed and brooded for the rest of the day about whether he said it because he thought I looked old and ugly and weak, and why would he want to make me feel bad? But of course I should have realized he was thinking that he, himself, wouldn’t be able to swing up into the saddle like I had just done, and I should have inquired about HIS pain or weakness.
I’m SORRY, my poor sad, suffering fellow mortals!
It’s late, and I’ll never recover the chances I’ve missed, but I hope in the time remaining, I’ll have the sense, the grace, to seize any opportunities to do better by you!