There's a woman on this flight who has no idea I'm writing about her.

She walked six rows past her seat to put her bags up, which meant the line behind her just kept moving, confused, until it didn't. Then she squeezed back through everyone to get to her row. Her small bag went overhead because why not. When she got up to grab it later, she hit me in the head and kept moving.

None of it was mean. She just wasn't thinking about anyone around her.

And I cannot stop thinking about everyone around me.

That's the thing I keep coming back to. I hung back to let the aisle clear. I kept my small bag at my feet because that's the agreement, even when no one's enforcing it. I absorbed the hit and didn't say anything because what's the point. Every one of those choices cost me something small. She didn't pay any of it.

I used to think that made me a pushover. Now I think it makes me someone with a value I haven't always named out loud: I believe people deserve to be considered in the small moments. The aisle. The overhead bin. The sorry after an accidental elbow. These things matter to me because they're how we say I see you without making a whole thing of it.

The cost is that I notice when other people don't. And it accumulates.

She's not a bad person. She's just moving through the world like she's the only one in it, and that's common enough that I should probably make peace with it. But I don't think the answer is to stop paying the tax. I think it's just to know that I'm paying it, and to decide it's worth it.

Because it is. Most of the time, it is.

XOXO ,