A couple of weeks ago, I organized to meet up with my grandparents at our local shopping centre. I arrived a little early with Phoebe and Maggie, so I took them to the indoor play area and sat down to watch the girls play.
As I reached down to get my phone to check on my emails, a middle-aged Asian man came up to me to say hello. I smiled at him and replied with a friendly hello, while turning my head to watch the girls.
The man then proceeded to say he recognized me as I was a ‘public figure’. He asked me to guess where he knew me from.
I had never seen this man in my life. I assumed he may have recognized me from an article in the local paper about receiving my female plumbing ambassadorship award on World Plumbing Day. He could have recognized me from my blog or he could have been an old client that I had strangely not remembered.
I asked him if he knew me from my plumbing blog or from being a plumber. He looked at me a little confused and said he didn’t read the internet. That got me thinking and I assumed he may have got me confused with somebody else.
But then he said ‘I know your last name is Senyard. And you are public figure. I haven’t seen you for long while.’
The fact this man knew my surname meant he must have known me in a closer circle. It turned out he knew me from my old church. He recognized me as a ‘public figure’ because Jacob and I would often be at the front of the church singing or performing.
The man told me that he had only been thinking about me and my husband and had commented to his wife that he hadn’t seen us for a very long while. I told him we hadn’t been to that church in a little under 3 years.
He then said that he missed seeing me and my husband at church, which had me feeling all the feels. What a lovely thing to say.
I told him what church we went to now and pointed out Maggie and Phoebe, as Maggie wasn’t even one when we left to find a new church and Phoebe… well she was just an embryo whom we had no idea about.
He gave me some parenting advice and then he went on his way, saying he was glad to have run into me, after he had thought about me.
As he walked away, I smiled and thought how random. Here I thought I might have had a reader coming to say hi because they read my blog. But I was recognized simply for attending church and serving on the stage.
This has now prompted me to send a quick text or message to a friend I haven’t seen in ages. There are plenty of times during the week that I stop and think of someone I haven’t seen in a while and wonder how they are.
An old friend from Mother’s Group or Playgroup.
A school friend.
A work colleague that went on maternity leave.
It’s a lovely feeling to be noticed, but even more so when your presence has been missed.
Have you ever had someone send a random text to say they’re thinking about you and have missed you? Ever had a reader recognise you in public and tell you that they read your blog?
After writing this post, I had a blogging friend message me to say that one of her friends from bookclub recognized me at a shopping centre and really liked the dress I was wearing which she later saw I had shared on Instagram.
It seems the world we live in is smaller than we realise!
I’m linking up with Essentially Jess for IBOT.
