Can You See Me?

I was at a super store, where nothing was particularly "super", shopping for large clear containers to pack up all my holiday stuff. You see I am getting ready to move...again. I am an accidental house flipper. It was never my intention to flip houses, but here I am renovating another house I will not be living in. It is the way of it for me. I knew as soon as I put in that damn closet organizer in, I was on my way out. Anywho, I was at the store standing in a very long line waiting for the singular cashier to check out the hundred people who were in line before me. I had gotten there really early, knowing that this close to Christmas, there would be a wait in store. My cart wasn't loaded down with Christmas goodies like it usually is, since I have only one family member with me these days. It was loaded down with large bulky plastic containers to fill with all of my holiday crap, so it can be moved back up north. How ironic that I moved 1200 miles from my hometown, so we would be spared the long distance move for my husband's company during the impending merger, only to have to pack up and move the opposite direction. We moved to Houston as a preemptive strike in 2004. We knew the merger was coming, we never expected them to move to the north. They showed us. As I stood there, shifting my weight from one leg to the other, bored and tired, I reached down to tie my shoe. When I looked up an elderly woman cut right in front of me. Her eyes down cast avoiding my face, she showed no signs of remorse for the clear breach of store etiquette. I was faced with a choice. Either I could try and stare her down, making her feel awkward the entire time for cutting in line, or I could engage her, showing her I was a human being and not a poorly organized store display. I opted to engage her, saying hello and asking her how she was spending her holidays. I knew when I left the house I needed to be patient. I knew people were frantic and panicked over the upcoming holiday, while I just needed mundane things, since I wasn't sure how much celebrating I was actually going to do. The older, wrinkle faced woman spoke to me about her son, her grandchildren, her widowed sister. She began to blame all things possible on the president when I shifted the conversation to Christmas. She went along with me chatting, looking me in the face, smiling from time to time. It was an easy conversation. She veered off slightly getting frustrated at how slow the line was, blaming the checker. Once again, I steered the conversation to a more empathetic place talking about how hard they work, how little they get paid, and how hectic the holidays are. Again, she went with me, nodding her head, speaking about how hard it is in the world today to just earn a living. She told me she was 80 years old. "My dad is 80 also," I said. We talked about having family so far away. I told her my kids moved and my husband was in Chicago. I ended up talking to that woman for about 25 minutes. We just stood and chatted, as we slowly made our way to the front of the line. I looked in her basket, where she had only five items. She wasn't cooking for Christmas and had bought potatoes, socks for her great grandchild, and a few other things. I made sure to look in her eyes. I stayed locked on her face, making her see me. In my head I thought, "I see you, I see you as a person, a woman, a mother, a grandmother and a great grandmother. I see how little you can afford, watching every penny to make sure you stay on budget. I see how tired you are, how much you have worked in your life. I see you." She checked her few items and grabbed her singular bag. She turned to me and said warmly, smiling, "Merry Christmas." "Merry Christmas, Ma'am", I said as I returned the smile. I could have gotten angry when she cut in that atrocious line. But I thought how much better it could be if I just turned an awkward silence into a momentary friendship, and I was right. I did see her, full in the face, for all the time we had together and she saw me too. I went from being a faceless nobody to someone she could relate to. It wasn't magical, or incredible or amazing. It was simply two people standing in line who had decided to make the best of it. It was human. As I left the store I made a promise to myself to be kinder this season, more patient, and give more of myself to complete strangers, even if they cut in line. I might just get a little conversation and a good story out of it.