My People

There are a lot of people in my life, friends, family, colleagues, my shoe man, my personal trainer, the good breakfast guy....well you get the picture. Not all of them are close to me, but they all make up the human landscape of my life.


Today one of 'my people' was having a bad day. She's not a close member of my crew, in fact I don't even know her name and I'm pretty sure she doesn't know who I am.

She works in the store I've been buying craft supplies from for the past three years, I probably only go in there once a month or so, but over that time I've become accustomed to her being there. I like the way she's always decked out in awesome clothes (I'm pretty sure she makes them herself), I like the way she loves the product that she sells and knows how to help me get the right materials for what I'm after, I like the way she creates amazing displays for spring carnival, and deals with all of the punters deciding to glue gun their own fascinators the day before Melbourne Cup (I think I would throttle them) and even more I like the smug way she makes me feel when we have a millinery conversation in front of aforementioned punters.

Today when I was buying some grossgrain ribbon for this weekend's races I noticed she seemed really down, I said a few generically sympathetic 'having a bad day' things, told her I hoped her day got better and walked out of the store.

The whole walk back to the office I was wracked with guilt - should I go back and find out what's wrong, perhaps take her out for coffee and a chat? Nah, what if she thinks I'm some kind of psycho stalker...or just plain weird? The thing is, I've grown so accustomed to her as part of my life, I feel that she is one 'my people' despite the fact I don't actually know her.

My question today is what responsibility do we have to 'our people'? If she was my friend, family member or shoe man (hey, good shoe men are hard to find - you've gotta look after them) then I would have given her a hug and looked after her until I was sure she was better, but I was put off because I don't actually know her - in other words, I was too scared of how she might have perceived me to offer help. Wow, that's pretty bad.

Tomorrow I'm heading back to the craft store under the pretence of buying some more supplies, hopefully this time I've got enough guts to risk looking silly just to make sure someone is alright.