I’ve been pretty sick recently. This weekend brought yet another trip to another doctor and then a subsequent trip to Walmart to pick up three new prescriptions.

I sat and waited, facing the main walkway that connects the pharmacy to the checkout and the rest of the store.

It was Friday night, and even though November means the start of the holiday season, I was surprised by how busy it was. Floods of people trudged by me, pushing their carts and dragging their kids. There wasn’t a calm moment.

I've always been a people watcher; people fascinate me and you could say I'm quite nosy.
I saw so many kinds of people that night. There were moms rushing by with their kids in tow, anxious to get the shopping done. There were young couples and elderly couples, some looking bored and others who still seemed captivated by each other's presence -- even on a Walmart run. There were solitary men and women who wore a scowl and there were solitary men and women who scanned the world around them with excited eyes. There were women with their arms in slings and a man in a wheelchair, and the number of people wearing camouflage was definitely way too high to be completely normal. I heard people talking on the phone in languages that were not my own and I watched a woman stroll past me dancing to a beat she hummed to herself.

I always hear people criticize Walmart, whether it's for quality or even the people who shop there.

But Walmart is humanity. Walmart is raw and Walmart is where no one is trying to hide. Why should you, when the 70-year-old woman next to you in the checkout is wearing a crop top?
Honestly, good for her.

Wouldn’t it be great if everyone approached life the same way they approach a Walmart run? Wouldn’t it be great if we stopped trying to hide the raw reality that we live in and instead embraced it?

We live in a world where people are fake. They hide their true faces and attempt to be strong, but who can be strong all the time? I know I can’t.

Let us openly embrace the chaos that is life. Time is limited--why would we waste it being someone we know we’re not? Why pretend to hold it all together when leaning on each other would make us stronger anyway?

Walmart might smell a little funny sometimes. Walmart might be a little stuffy or a little crowded, but it's real.

As silly as it sounds, it was refreshing to be there. I appreciated being able to look around at all the people rushing past me, unworried about who they saw or what they were doing. It reminded me that we all choose how we live our lives. We can choose to put on a brave face or we can choose to simply be candid with the people who surround us.

The choice is ours. We only need the courage to make it.