Fainting

While I was getting the aforementioned flu shot and contemplating life my sister was fainting. I thought she was joking around at first but nope, she actually fainted. Lying on the floor of the Safeway pharmacy she looked so pale and vulnerable. It was pretty terrifying. Okay, story time. In third grade all of the classes organized their own "restaurants". We all had to put together little resumes and go through the interviewing process to get our preferred job. When the day of the restaurant all of the third grade families were invited and we sold sandwiches. So me and my friend secured jobs as chefs based off our superior PB&J skills and we were goofing off in the back of the kitchen. One of the parent volunteers finally was fed up with us and gave us the vital job of making sandwiches for the principal and vice principal. THAT'S RIGHT. THE PRINCIPAL. We freaked out. I mean, if we messed up it was pretty much grounds for expulsion. So we went about very carefully making two tuna sandwiches. As I delicately was placing the final slice of bread on top I suddenly felt really dizzy. "Oh well", thought naive, third grade me. "I'll be fine." I was not fine. I ended up face planting into the sandwich right as the principal came to check on the kitchen. I landed on friend and she took the vice principal's sandwich with her as we crashed to the floor in a pile of third grade excitement and tuna. I ended up being fine, like my little sister, but I have been forbidden from making tuna sandwiches since.

Today, I learned a new word

sonder - n. the realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own



Some days everyone around me feels small and insignificant. The whole world doesn't appear to be made up of individual people but instead just of me. Me and only me. This selfish outlook is something I feel we all share and have felt at some point in life. I mean, it's in a person's nature to worry about themselves. We all are trying to survive. But then you hit a wall. A wall of thought and realization and despair. Everyone you see everyday has problems, issues, troubles and in a lot of cases there is nothing you can do about it. Today I was slapped in the face with a feel of sonder. As I was shifting around in my overly cushy seat at the doctor's office, waiting for my turn to have a needle shoved into my arm, I heard a small cough. I looked up and saw an old man, someone I hadn't noticed before. He was wearing a dirty shirt, had holes in his glove and his shoes were decrepit. His cheeks were flushed bright red. His life was full of good days and bad. He had seen it all. And yet, too preoccupied with my own problems, I hadn't even noticed his existence. Glancing around the room I noticed the sleep deprived nurse, crying girl and lonely man and it hit me that I was not alone. I was immensely small. Even the smiling men and women on the covers of the nearby fashion magazines had problems and issues. Everyone has problems. I am not alone and I find comfort in that. I find comfort in the insignificance.