Moments

When I left school, I chose to take an apprenticeship rather than attend college, due to the fact that living in the middle of nowhere made getting to a college both difficult and expensive. I won't bore you with the details of the experience, but I learned a great deal about taking care of animals, and it was the first time I had lived away from home, which wasn't surprising since I had only just turned sixteen.

Suffice to say, I spent two years there, grew up a bit, gained some qualifications, and managed to earn enough money to send myself on a gap year around Europe, which I was very proud of myself for doing. I had grown up on a tight budget, used to hand-me-downs from my older sister and supermarket own-brand food, and having money for frivolous spending for the first time in my life seemed a magical and wondrous thing.

I very quickly learned that travelling alone is a nerve-wracking endeavor, and that without any idea of what to do with myself, I floundered in strange places and ended up wandering aimlessly about, wishing for companionship. My first trip was to Spain, and I barely ate for the first three days there because I was so afraid to go into a shop and talk to anyone.

Luckily for me, I was staying in a hostel, and before long the room I had been staying in gained a new occupant in the form of another young woman who was very gracious about gaining a small, English limpet who followed her around wherever she went. It's fairly embarrassing, looking back at how desperately I clung onto the first person who showed me any positive attention, but I really don't know what I would have done without her.

Mandy* was the saviour of my entire year, I think. She rescued me from my own fears and allowed me to enjoy my first solo trip. Without her I fully expect that I may have returned home so disheartened by my experience that I simply gave up on the whole 'travelling' idea. Instead, I gained a new appreciation for meeting new people, and a strong desire to try again.

Unfortunately, Mandy returned home before I did, and once again I found myself at a bit of a loss for what to do with myself, though I at least didn't find myself suffering from anxiety-induced starvation again. However, once you have made one new friend, making others doesn't seem quite so daunting, and so I was far quicker at introducing myself to the other inhabitants of my hostel room after she had gone.

There were two other people in Spain who I will probably remember for the rest of my life, though both of their names remain a complete mystery to me. The first was a man who came across me when I was reading a book in a quiet square in Valencia. He looked travel worn and carried with him an enormous rucksack, reminiscent of every backpacker in every travel brochure I had ever seen. He came up to me and gave me a bracelet.

I think he found it somewhere, and gave it to me because I was the first woman that he came across. Neither of us spoke a common language with the other, and, aside from those twenty seconds of interaction, I never saw him again. But he made me smile that day. I think about him sometimes, and I hope that he is doing alright.

The second person was a waiter in a restaurant who saw me hovering outside, trying to get up the courage to sit down and order something despite being by myself. He waved me over and handed me a menu, and when I made a nervous joke about being self conscious, he offered me a reassuring smile and told me to "Be brave!" He was a wonderfully warm sort of person, and I think of him every time I eat out in a restaurant, although that has been happening much less often lately.

When it came to the rest of my year, I found myself looking into volunteering programs, rather than subjecting myself to more of the uncertainty of visiting somewhere with no set plan. I liked the structure of it, the many people I met with similar interests and passions to myself. I felt useful, working abroad, without the pressures that come from a job which requires you to be on top of your game. And yet, of all the people I met and became friends with, out of every big-hearted volunteer who worked alongside me, I still find myself thinking more often of those first three strangers that encountered me in Spain, especially this past year.

Maybe it's the chance of it all. The reality that, if I had been given a different room, had chosen somewhere else to read, had decided to take a different street, I might not have met any of them. Maybe it's because their kindness was so unnecessary. They did not need to interact with me. Mandy could have refused to let me tag along behind her. The waiter could have ignored me. The traveler could have thrown the bracelet away rather than choose to pass it on.

In a year like 2020, everyone has seen more than their fair share of hardship and suffering. If, like me, you have been lucky enough to avoid experiencing it personally, then you will still have seen it impacting the people around you. The media has often seemed like a never-ending parade of loss and suffering, and though there have been plenty of heroics and acts of altruism to go around, I think that sometimes we have all felt a sense of it being too little, too late.

And yet, despite all of this, I have often found myself thinking back to that first, pivotal trip, and the strangers that I met on it. Remembering each small moment of unthinking generosity that I experienced managed to do what the hopeful segments that usually play at the end of the news programs often failed to achieve; it gave me hope.

These memories are not the only ones, of course. Thoughts of my family and close friends have been a great comfort to me as well, which I am sure can be said of everyone. But for some reason, I find myself unexpectedly fixated on my three good Samaritans from years ago. Possibly it is my brain attempting to remind me of better times. A simple longing for the days when hopping onto a plane and spending time with complete strangers seemed the easiest thing in the world. But I believe that there is more to it.

Good deeds from those we know and love are commonplace. That is not to say that they are unimportant, but rather, that we become used to them. We take them for granted, because we know that those who gift them to us do it out of a place of established care. Why wouldn't those close to us be kind? Good deeds from strangers, however, rarely cease to be surprising.

We don't expect people we do not know to stand beside us. We hope for it, certainly, but we don't stand around waiting for it to happen, which makes it all the more memorable, when it does. I can't think of anybody who does not have some fond anecdote about a random interaction with someone they do not know. Something about those sorts of circumstances stays with us, a funny little story to pull out on a rainy day, and that is inspiring to me.

The idea that I may not be a hero on the front lines of this crisis, or the backbone of my community organizing fundraisers and food banks, but that I might still be a part of someones story, is something that gives me a remarkable amount of hope.

Hope that I might have helped someone who felt lost feel a little less lonely. Hope that something small I did could have made someone smile. Hope that something I said could have helped someone be brave.

Occasionally, I wonder if the people I met on my travels ever think of me. Would they ever think to spare a thought for someone that they knew for such a short amount of time? Probably not. Time passes, after all. Life is a busy, fleeting thing, and so many small things slip through the cracks.

There's a beauty in that, though. The simple, incredible fact that each of us have an impact on everyone around us, even if we might not remember them. And, in a year as dark as 2020 was, it seems fitting that we might draw strength from those small moments, from the little things that no one else remembers. A simple, small reminder that good people are everywhere, and we can all make a difference in someone else's life. Even if it is only a tiny one.

*Names have been changed for privacy purposes.