Another Mundane Reflection, But During Holidays.

I had to go out today, and unsurprisingly, I did not want to.

I was feeling tired. December, which seems to carry itself with hunched shoulders, weighed me down. But out I went, feeling like I was traversing my own thoughts as one traverses against a crowd at rush hour.

My little sister needed to go back to her place. We needed to stop somewhere so she could shop for groceries. It was barely afternoon when we left, but in the winter way, it was already dark.

We sat mostly in silence in the car. I did not want to be feeling how I was, but I was, and so I let it be. And as I watched people like someone window-shopping mindsets, life felt like such an abstract, unobtainable concept, that I felt a sort of suffocating notion that even a life I imagine I should be living is probably nothing short of undesirable when actually lived.

Regardless, we went to get groceries. And as I often do in spaces like that, I felt dizzy, and silly at feeling dizzy. I wanted to be home. Put simply, I was overwhelmed by the amount of life residing outside my bubble of stillness. Sad, anxious, scared. I usually can’t even speak much, because even colors seem loud, and then I feel utterly incompetent and incapable of doing even the most mundane parts of existence.

But then this boy’s cart bumped against ours, and he apologized with a smile before passing by. And he seemed to be so still amidst this chaos visible to me, that it gave me pause. At self-checkout, I noticed he was using the machine directly behind us. I saw him and his mom, same unruly curls, same round blue eyes. Wearing pajamas, seemingly in the middle of some private, quiet joke. There was nothing particular about them that stood out, it was just a teenager and his mom, getting groceries on a Friday night. I looked at their cart, and noticed they had nothing but a boxed miniature Christmas tree, two stockings, two Santa hats, and a bag of chocolate. They bagged their things and left, the boy skating with the shopping cart, his mom smiling and shaking her head.

And knowing nothing of their circumstances, knowing nothing about them at all but this one captured moment, I felt lighter. I can’t pinpoint exactly why, but somehow, the mundane parts of existence didn’t feel quite so daunting anymore.

And on the ride home, I was still quiet. But it was an entirely different kind of silence.