Today, I went to a friend's house and had a socially distanced, under 7 people gathering where we shared Maryland crabs and caught up. It was the first intimate social interaction I've had for months since Covid impacted and changed our lives, all while trying to reduce risk as much as possible.
It was a moment, that in normal days, we could have done every day. And yet, this time, it felt so extraordinary, a testament to the importance of the every day moments of our lives that we have learned to not appreciate.
In my daily life now, I teach, watch some TV, go on a run with myself and maybe a friend, eat, maybe call a family member, and, well, that's about it. Compared to my pre-Covid life, life is a lot more mundane, and maybe, just maybe, that's fine.
In a non-moralizing way, I realized that I never have appreciate the every day routine and moments that I completely neglected before, from the commute to work, actually having a reason to driving my car, work itself, the run with my running club, and everything in routine.
Not only do I miss every day life, but I miss every day people. That means the first people I see in the building when I get to my school, from my custodian, secretary, and other teachers, and that means my students when things got chaotic. It means the bus drivers, grocery stores workers, cashiers, and people you just see every day that give some semblance of normalcy and routine.
The heroes in life are ordinary people.
We may read a lot about celebrities, athletes, politicians, and famous people in the news all the time, but we don't know them nearly as well as we know the ordinary people in our lives, whether it's family, co-workers, or just people we see every day. And you know what ordinary people have taught me?
People are naturally kind. Everyone is a good person unless there's some sort of insane pressure not to be. When the pressure is off and the camera is away, people show you that they are just people, people with trials and tribulations, with regular anxieties of putting food on the plate and making ends meet, but people with a natural sense of justice and morality to treat everyone they come across with kindness and respect.
I'll always remember the high school kid, Jaylin, who works at the convenience store near where I live. Jaylin is a student at an alternative school who has led and put out of multiple schools in his youth, but works extremely hard to support his family and his younger siblings. I'll often see Jaylin working the night shift, at insane hours like 1 a.m. or midnight, almost every day of the week.
I don't know Jaylin as my student, but I know that he works fast, hard, and politely to put customers' sandwiches together and be courteous to people that walk into the store. He is the first to greet someone and knows almost every person that passes through the store's doors by name — and he is a constant reminder, to me, of the every day kindness of others.
It makes me more at peace to know that these every day people and interactions that we often take for granted are usually the most special ones. It's not like just a casual conversation with a cashier is going to make the news, but in a lot of ways, it's more important than anything you see in the news.
In Baltimore, the news tends to be very, very negative, and it's hard for it not to be. It's the latest murder that's all too common, the political corruption of our city's leaders, and the dysfunction of our schools.
I don't doubt that there is dysfunction in my every day life, but the dysfunction pales in comparison to the hope and kindness I see on a daily basis.
You learn quickly that people are just trying to get by. And they're trying to get by with the least amount of resistance possible because we all know that life is hard enough. They don't try to mess with people or be cruel by default.
That doesn't mean I have a picturesque and rosy view of the world where God doesn't allow sin, but that people are kind and well-meaning until a greater force pushes them to be otherwise.
It is the every day people who let their guard down because we see them every day, the every day people who say hi and interact with us that are much more important than we could have ever imagined. Right now, it's a time to grieve the loss of our every day routines, and especially the every day people we deal with.
When you have a terrible day, there are people you can rely on to make it better. The mere exposure effect in psychology dictates that these are the people who we interact with most — and as much as they may drive us crazy, what drives us crazier is not having them and not having our routines.
I wish that I could see the runners I run with every day, the students I interact with every day, the cashiers I interact with every day. It just isn't the same right now as much as it is different, and it is the casual reminder that we survive together, as a community. We never appreciate it until it's gone.
When we can't interact with that community, who are we? If I am only for myself, what am I?
