So there I was minding my own business, enjoying the stroll, or should I say pushing the metal grated tub that Wal-mart so eagerly desires for me to fill, through the store.  It was more of a quite night which is sort of rare, so I was grateful…

Then it happened.   A woman I know, you know the type… you know them just enough to have a small, but nice, polite conversation but never call on the phone, walked down the baking isle straight at me while I was scanning for baking powder.  Our eyes made contact, we exchanged a breezy, “Hello, how are you?”  “I’m good, how are you.”  “I’m great.”  And then we were passed one another.  Neither breaking their stride.  You could feel the relief that the encounter was over.  Which left me wondering why any of us bother with these exchanges at all?

That got me thinking about human interactions…again.  I can think about this.  Not like all the time or anything.  But I do.  Do you?

Since I was in this convenient location I started looking at people without a smile and then with.  It was difficult to get anyone to look back.  But easier if I smiled.  The ones that noticed I was smiling at first looked at me like I was holding a gun.  They had this quick stop moving, then double take.  Then they relaxed and smiled back.  Almost grateful to have someone, anyone acknowledge them with a smile.  For me this is when, at times I will say something.  Tonight I said nothing.  Just to see what they would do.   They said nothing.

You know, it really is amazing how expert we are at ignoring each other.  As if the other person wasn’t there.  And they can be a foot away.  We do it in stores, movie theaters where we’re elbow to elbow, elevators…  I watched other people to see how they were interacting and some literally looked right through other people.  Then I wondered, “Do I do that?  I bet I do.  Yeah, I do.”

It became almost odd as I looked around.  So very many wanted to not be seen.  Like at all.  They did all they could not to be.  “So strange I thought,  here I am looking at people, you know like they were actually there alive and breathing, right by me and I want to acknowledge them but they’re uncomfortable with me even seeing them.”

And yet what do we all crave?  Companionship.  Love.  Acknowledgment.  People in our lives…  This is truly dyslexic.  We’re all dyslexic.

I am one of those people that has days where I purposefully go around greeting people and talking in elevators.  Then I don’t.  I want to get in and get out.  Unnoticed.  To blend in to the surroundings.  I’m half dyslexic  <Big grin, LOL>  I think it’s the Gemini in me, it’s all I can figure.

Well, anyway all I could say was… how strange this all is.  Then I think, hummmmm….

What are all these people thinking?  Are they hurting.  Are they like this because of their pasts and their silent pains?  What’s hurting inside them?  What are they fearing.  Like I have hurts.  Fears.  Insecurities.

We’re all so much the same.  And yet different.  And then the same…
Hungry for love and acceptance.  Carrying around something that makes us do sometimes odd behaviors, or cause us to stop and ask ourselves, “Now why did I just do that?”  Unconscious acts that we do everyday, that came out of our pasts, that dictate our behavior and thoughts today.  In the effort to maintain.  To survive.  Even if we don’t really view it that way… consciously.

These are my thoughts.  What do you think?  Share, would you?
Night, love ya,
Theresa Jane