Smiling at Strangers Through Your Mask
Why You Must Not Lose Hope
For some reason, the most memorable time of the day for me is when I have an interaction with a stranger that makes me stop and think. For a while. It feels weird, yet, normal..? Or at least, like something that’s supposed to feel normal. You know what I mean.
When you pass by a stranger on the street and smile, you forget about the mask for a moment. You forget about the rest of the world collapsing around you and it’s just you and the stranger, exchanging a smile. You instantly realize they can’t even see your smile so you try to crinkle your eyes in a way to show that you are in fact smiling, but then you feel unnatural and like you’re trying way too hard for this stranger…so you keep walking. But this interaction will stay with you for a while and will linger in your mind as you’re trying to fall asleep at night.
After all, aren’t those little moments — the moments that make our day good or bad — the ones that matter? Without those, what do we have to hold on to? You’re left with a sinking feeling in your chest. The virus has not only taken your job and your ability to see all your closest friends, it’s also taken your ability to exchange a simple smile with a cashier clerk. It’s stolen a single moment of connection between you and a stranger. A connection that would’ve said “Hey, I see you and I feel you.” It’s taken away your chance to relate to someone else and to share a moment with someone whose happening to cross paths with you at an exact specific time and place.
You’re on your own journey as is the stranger and all you can do to connect is to exchange a smile, sort of to say, “Hey, this is kinda cool. I have no idea who you are, but we are at the same place at the same time experiencing the exact same thing. Have a good one.”
But the mask has taken it all away.
It’s taken away your comfort, your human connection, and your joy.
But something it hasn’t taken away is your ability to empathize. Everyone in the world right now is dealing with the same thing, their inability to smile at strangers through their masks.
So what does that mean? It means you lie awake at night thinking about the possibility that maybe the other person smiled back at you through their mask. And then you start to wonder if they had the same internal conflict as you. And then you empathize with them because you wish they knew how you felt. You feel their pain because you are also feeling the confusion and discomfort.
We stand together as a united people. We are one and the same. With the mask on or off, you smile at strangers because you seek human comfort, validation that everything is going to be okay.
You understand the fear and pain of the bus driver, the grocery store clerk, and the delivery man. You connect on a deeper level than just “hello”. You know that you’re not alone and that others are dealing with the same worries, confusion, and desperation as you. We are all, for once, in the same boat.
What does that mean? It means we must continue smiling through our masks. We cannot lose hope. We have to keep believing that the other person is smiling back at us and that we will be okay if we stick together. We must hold onto the fact that people have our backs, that they empathize with us, and that this will all soon go away and we’ll be able to exchange real smiles with strangers just as we did before COVID.
