It’s story time again! And this time the only purpose of my sharing this story is to make you feel like the most amazing person on earth…or at least super super super glad and relieved that you’re not as awkward as I am.

So lately I’ve been playing this fun game where I pretend like I’m a people person. And it’s been going so well that I’m 78% sure that somewhere deep down inside of me there is an actual people person who’s been hiding for basically my whole life (and for a wide variety of weird reasons that we can explore at a later date).

In practice, what this looks like is me smiling at people in the grocery store and not pretending to be asleep on airplanes and not wearing my earbuds every time I leave the house so that people won’t try to engage with me (though let me state for the record that these are all very brilliant maneuvers and I am keeping them all in my back pocket and patting them lovingly at regular intervals so they will not feel neglected and leave me).

Anyway. I was in an airport a few weeks ago about to fly home from spending the day speaking to some amazing women about God and my failures and how he still loves me in spite them because he is very patient and loving (ETC.) and a man came down and sat next to me and so I smiled at him because (don’t forget) I am now a person who smiles at people.

He smiled back — but just a little because he was having a very frustrating day in a great many very frustrating ways — and I kept smiling (because again, I AM A SMILER NOW) and I listened and nodded and said some encouraging things and then I smiled some more and I felt like everything was going absolutely swimmingly so I thought I’d continue to engage with this man who was having a terrible no good very bad day and I said, “Good sir, do you perchance have any grandchildren?”

And he said (wait for it)…”Do I look like a man who is old enough to have grandchildren?!?”

And then I died.

The end.

You are all invited to my funeral.

Haha. Just kidding. It gets worse. Instead I started rambling about how I have a million children and started gestating at a very young age and so did a lot of my friends and it was all SUPER WEIRD, you guys.

And he was seriously mad about it! And I felt so bad and thought about running away but I was wearing heels and that seemed risky and tiring and also I am now officially a person who smiles at people so I just kept smiling and eventually things kind of sort of turned out okay. Maybe.

(Though I’m pretty sure he’s still mad at me.)

But you know what? I still think God was pretty proud of me. I think he absolutely shook his head and thought, “What am I going to do with this girl?” But I think it was in an affectionate way. Because I tried. I tried to be a person who brings love and light into people’s worlds and though maybe I also bring some weird comments and unintended insults, too, that doesn’t negate the love and light. And so I said a little prayer that God would, in his magical God way, remove my comment about grandchildren from this man’s brain and only leave the memory of my smiles (which I think was a pretty brilliant idea by me, God, so I hope you were listening).

And so here’s your takeaway: be glad you’re not as ridiculous and silly and catastrophically awkward as me.

But also this…

If you are a person who sometimes puts your foot in your mouth and trips over your words and maybe the occasion curb and sometimes (because your very, very tired) wears your shirt backwards or chooses two non-matching shoes or only mascaras one eye (though hopefully with Benefit’s Roller Lash mascara because it is THE BEST), don’t let that stop you. Keep going out there and sharing your wonderful, unique, beautiful self with the world. Keep smiling at strangers and complimenting people who are sad or mad or frustrated. Keep paying for the coffee order of the person in line behind you at Starbucks. Keep leaving little happy notes in random spots around the world so that someone will find them and be delighted. Keep being you. Because the world needs you. It needs you and it needs the unique brand of wonderfulness that only you can manufacture.

Just maybe don’t ask strangers about their non-existent grandchildren.