January 4: Let’s Celebrate “Trivia Day”!

I grew up playing board games, but one of my least favorite was Trivial Pursuit. It’s a game based on trivia from six different categories including geography, history, and sports, but unlike Battleship, which required a little bit of strategy, or Uno, which required a little bit of luck, or Jenga, which required a little bit of confidence, if you didn’t know the trivia from that card’s question, you were just out of luck…which happened a lot when I was an eight year old playing an edition that was probably older than I was.

But the thing about trivia is that the older you get and more experiences you have, the more trivia you collect. I can draw a family tree of the members of the British Royal Family. I can explain the difference between macaroons and macarons. I can tell you the names of the Dundie Awards given to every character on The Office.

Trivia in itself is defined as “pieces of information of little importance or value.” And while none of these particular pieces of trivia are especially impressive, they are a little piece of the puzzle of me.

One of the things I love best about a friendship is collecting trivia about another person, details that don’t seem important on the surface but that only a close friend would notice. I know that my husband makes and updates lists on a variety of topics, including favorite books, mock football drafts, and playoff matchups. I know that when one of my friends has had a tough day, she puts her hair up in a bun on top of her head. I know that a teacher friend of mine has a treasure trove of supplies in her storage closet, from plastic utensils, to cardstock in every color imaginable, to power tools.

Which makes me wonder what trivia my friends have collected about me? And to harken back to my post about new year’s resolutions, what is it I hope they know about me by the end of this year? By this time next year, I hope they know the names of at least six short stories I’ve written. I hope they can name the titles of their three favorite “Acorns and Oakes” blog posts. I hope they know that I celebrated my fortieth birthday by going skydiving. But whatever they know about me now and whatever they learn about me this year, I hope their Mrs. Oakes trivia is rooted in creativity, humor, and kindness. I hope that their Mrs. Oakes trivia is evidence that I have bloomed.

Think of how much more trivia you will have accumulated by the end of this year. Make it a point to learn as much as possible about as many different things as possible, because that’s the thing about trivia. The only way to collect more of it is to experience more of life.