I have always been known to be a talker. I often ramble on when talking to other people, I ask a lot of questions, and when I tell a story, I often divert into about three different stories apart from the main one. Even when I was little, my teachers would always call me a Little Miss Chatterbox.
We all remember those books, right? The Little Miss series by Rodger Hargreaves features cute little round characters with a variety of attributes like stubborn, shy, helpful, and of course, chatterbox. Even now these iconic characters have become memes, with people customizing them to the universities they go to or certain niche attributes they have. But unfortunately, I was never coined Little Miss Sunshine or Little Miss Helpful. No, I was Little Miss Chatterbox. I talked to literally everyone about literally everything.
My Little Miss Chatterbox behavior has continued even into college; I still find myself talking quite a bit. The one thing I didn’t like talking about, though? My dream job and what I wanted to do for a career. For that, I had quite a rehearsed, succinct answer: “Oh, I’m still feeling out what I want to do one day.” The thought of a career was frightening: the idea of having to pick something I’d have to love because I’d stick with it for the rest of my life? I didn’t entirely know what I was good at. I got decent grades, and I was better at English than I was at math, but it wasn’t like I was an incredibly talented artist or could play an instrument well.
But I never connected how this whole time I had been known for being a talker. I had just been communicating with people and talking to them about their stories. This idea didn’t hit home for me until this past summer. I had the amazing opportunity to study abroad in London. When I was there, I talked to everyone. And when I say everyone, I mean everyone. I would ask waiters and locals what their favorite, can’t-miss places were in the city. And of course, I’d talk to the other students I was studying abroad with about our experiences.
While abroad, I took advantage of being able to travel internationally. About midway through my time there, two of my friends and I traveled to Rome and Napoli, Italy. Thanks to suggestions from our friends, we learned that Napoli is home to some phenomenal food, and we truly ate our way through the city. On our second night there, we stumbled upon the quintessential Italian restaurant in the Spanish Quarter. There was a red and white checked tablecloth on the tables, advertisements for Aperol Spritzes on the menu, and soft tea lights lighting the outdoor seating area. And, even better, the menu was completely in Italian.
At some point in the meal, the chef came out to check on us. I don’t know how the conversation started, but he ended up trying to teach us how to pronounce the menu items. He laid out the menu in front of me and pointed out the “bruschetta.” I knew the dish. It was delicious, warm, flakey, garlic bread with light tomato on it. “Bru-sche-tt-a,” I sounded it out, feeling just as red as the vegetables on the table. Our new favorite chef busted out laughing. “Bru-ske-ta!” He conducted us into saying it together with all of us giggling at the absurdity of the whole situation.
He ended up sitting at the table next to us and talking to us about what Napoli meant to him and how it was his home. As he explained the love he had for the place, you could tell that he was just glowing with pride for the town and the restaurant he built within it.
It was somewhere in this conversation I began to realize how lucky I was to be there. I was in Italy. ITALY. With two of my close friends, learning how to pronounce items on the menu and hearing about what makes this place home for someone. Later, our waitress brought her baby out to our table, and her excitement was absolutely contagious. It felt like we were part of the restaurant family at that point.
But had I not been so chatty, would I be in that same situation? Had I not been almost annoyingly curious to others around me at times, would I have been at that table, asking our chef about what Napoli means to him?
Of course, once we got home, I had to sit down and text out everything that happened to my parents. As I drafted up a text explaining how amazing the night was, it was like something clicked.
This is what I loved. I loved talking to people. I loved learning about what they loved, what made their hearts beat and their souls shine. And I loved writing it all down to tell others. To share the stories I was learning.
And this is how I turned being a Little Miss Chatterbox into realizing my dream profession: Communication and Journalism. A childhood nickname, a thing I thought was bad, helped me to understand that I wanted to talk about everything with everyone and share it all with the world one day.
So, if you’re ever a little worried about where you belong in this world, what you’re doing, or who you’re going to be, I find it helps to look backward in time at your younger self, someone with that childlike wonder.
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