It was the Smallest Moment

I can't speak for anyone else but this last year has been hard. I know that. It's with me every day as we start into 2021 with some doozies. Still, when you live in chaos something inside of you deadens to it; we harden, hunker down, plow through - trauma reigns, so we exist in trauma rules. Survive. I know that. I say it again because I'm still amazed how small actions will stun me into realizing how hard it has truly been.

I, as many of us have, significantly reduced my outings. I go to work and I get grocery pick up every 1-2 weeks. Rinse. Lather. Repeat. As a long-term socially anxious introverted hermit the initial reduction of socialization was, honestly, a relief. I felt unburdened at the beginning. I couldn't let anyone down by staying in because we were all staying in. It wasn't eccentric or lazy to get groceries delivered it was our civic duty. I got into a routine among the chaos. Today that routine deviated.

I was listening to an audio book and doing some tidying up at my apartment before going over to my partner's place, my only social person, acceptable, I reasoned because we share two households; his and mine. He texted asking if I could pick up bread because it was the only thing we were out of. I said yes, although immediately I was concerned about where to go, and a little bit of how, which, I get is illogical. I understand the steps but, vulnerably speaking, I have not just stopped in a store for anything since April 2020 -- my skills of spontaneity and adaptation have grown a little (extremely) lethargic and being suddenly called into action made them freeze.

So, obviously, as an adult human I motivated myself in a completely functional, totally healthy, reasonable way; I bribed myself. In exchange for picking up bread I can get a treat, I reasoned, and having been a rural kid, pre-teen, teen, and young adult, nothing says treat to me like getting to pick out a magazine. This was not just any magazine mind you this was one of those 10 dollar special magazines. So for $1.59 I got bread and for $9.99 I got my reward.

I was in the check out line and when I got up to the front the cashier begin to look at the magazine that was all about organization and commented on their desire to organize too. I shared that I was trying to slowly work through my home, decluttering and organizing, and thought this might help. She commented that her sewing room always ends up as the catch all for everything. I excitedly responded, expressing that I too, had that issue with my knitting stuff (neverminded my whole place is the issue -- that's hardly the point). We exchanged a few more pleasantries wished each other well and I left. The entire event couldn't have been more than 3 minutes tops. Pre-pandemic it would've been nothing, in fact, as someone who is often socially fatigued, it would've been a chore but yesterday - it was everything.

It was such a tiny moment in the larger scope of, well, the world but it held something within it; the ease of connection, the normalcy of the act, the reminder that other people exist -- not in some abstract -- we're in this together alone kind of way but in the way we were; whole, exchanging moments with each other dozens of times a day. It wasn't as though we lingered in the conversation but for the first time in a very long time, it wasn't rushed. Even now I don't know that I have the words to convey what a gift this was to me.

It stuns me to reflect on it, because she was simply doing her job, very well, yes, but something she must do so many times in a single shift. Where I would expect her to show some kind of anger, resentment, outrage at the state of things because she is, literally, on the front lines I was met with kindness, courtesy, and a the tiniest bit of small talk that, for the first time in my life wasn't a chore, but a luxurious unmitigated delight.

It didn't cost her anything, but it meant everything to me.