Back Story

I read a scientific journal article tonight after dinner.
 
Surprised? Did you assume I'd be reading entertainment or parenting magazines, or watching TV for fun or research?
 
The truth is, while I am no scientist, I am the resident proofreader for my husband's work. My elementary and middle school grammar lessons (including diagramming sentences!) stuck with me in a big way, meaning I am kind of fearless when it comes to "copy editing" pretty much any kind of content. Do I follow a certain book of rules? Probably not. But I can say with confidence that documents I proofread generally turn out better.
 
Now, I am not writing about this to toot my own horn. It just occurred to me that, just as people reading this post might be surprised to hear that I'm reading scientific papers, many of us are surprised by people we know all the time. We go through life putting people in categories--little boxes of sorts--but more often than not, people don't easily fit into boxes. A presumably serious person at work turns out to do standup comedy on the side. A seemingly mild-mannered mom does improv. People can surprise you, no matter how well you think you know them. And things you don't know about a person can really affect the person you do know. Kind of like the back story of a soap opera character, the pieces of our histories and our sets of skills--obvious or not-so-obvious--inform the people we are and the decisions we make each day. They don't make us different people, but they do make us fuller people.
 
So the next time you think you know exactly who someone is, or exactly what he or she can do, take a moment to remember that there's often more than you can see--a back story that molds the "front-burner" story every day.