We all have stories.  Stories are one of the things that makes us human.  And by sharing our stories we can learn much about ourselves, our own story and the world around us.

So it is that we – for the first time in D.C. –  met up with two of my husband’s former colleagues for dinner on I Street last night.  The stories flowed.  We each had a piece of our lives that felt so uniquely ours that we were anxious to tell.  There was no competition, no challenges, no “my story is better than yours.”  It was a comfortable sharing of “this is what happened to me.”  We laughed and ate and shared our disbelief at how our own unique stories intersected and paralleled each other’s.

We began to see that each of our stories – that were so unique to us – was a part of a larger story.  And we began to make connections and see similarities that we had failed to see before.  No matter what we are inclined to believe, we are not alone.  And in the sharing and the telling of stories, the burden we each carried was made lighter.

We found another refreshing result from the sharing of our stories.  We found grace and understanding; support and encouragement as well as laughter and insight.  While we each thought our stories could only have happened to us, and could only have been an individual  occurrence, we soon learned that we shared something on a deeper level – not just our experiences and stories, but our hopes and dreams for the future and for improvements in working conditions and organizations everywhere.

Profound grace and a wonderful gift from a simple dinner invitation and shared stories.