Reflecting back to early pandemic days and recalled this “all too human” moment….
Made an early morning trip to the grocery store. The store requested that customers wear masks, but did not require them. Most wore masks.
A prism through which to read this vignette. I’m fully vaccinated, but have an underlying condition which may impact how many antibodies I develop as a result of vaccinations. Sooo, with surging variants at that time, I wore my mask everywhere.
As a result of my own situation, I found myself feeling very reactive/judgmental around people who didn’t wear masks in stores. I was uncomfortable with my reactivity, but knew I was in automatic fight/flight mode as a result of my antibody unknowns. (Oh, no, predator without a mask! Run!) My reactivity ran counter to my own value system of building bridges to others. (No, no stay away from me!!)
Back to that morning’s store jaunt. I wound my way toward the candy aisle (gotta have chocolate even if it’s sugar-free.) Just before I turned into that aisle, an unmasked man, talking on his cell phone preceded me. Fight/flight alert! Fight/flight alert! Spreading possible viral load even though he’s probably vaccinated!
See what I mean about being reactive?
Having allowed myself to be taken captive by my fight/flight reactivity, and judging this guy up the wazoo, I go over to the next aisle and u-turn into the other end of the candy aisle. Having done so, the unmasked man STILL has the nerve to be in my chosen aisle! Well, damn, I am NOT going to be deterred from my sugar-free chocolate. Of course, it’s on the bottom shelf. Once I get my body all-the-way-down, the package behind the coveted chocolate keeps falling off the shelf to the floor. I put it back. It falls to the floor again. I put it back. Again, it topples to the floor. I finally push it further back on the shelf where it has the good grace to remain. Whew.
Managing to stand up straight again, I found that the unmasked man had been watching this little scenario. He smiled at me and said “You won!” Let’s face it, my fight/flight heart melted at that very moment and my judgments of him dropped away. There’s nothing like a shared moment of humanity.
Please feel free to share with others.
