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October 15, 2016 16:05 +0000  |  Self Reflection Strangers 1

Much of this blog recently has been a collection of elaborate updates, so allow me one post just to assemble some thoughts I've had over the past few days.

I made the unfortunate mistake yesterday of leaving for a trip to Brussels without my passport. I mean, it's just Belgium, why the hell would I need a passport to go to Belgium? Unfortunately I forgot that I live in "The America of Europe", a nation of the terrified and proudly uninformed -- they're not keen on open boarders here.

My feelings about the British aside, it remained that I wasn't about to be allowed on the train, so I had to go back to the ticket booth and try to exchange my ticket for one running the following day. The woman behind the desk was friendly and helpful, and in the end, my stupidity only cost me £60. In fact, I'm on the newly-booked train right now and expect to be arriving in Brussels in about 2hours.

Before I walked away from the counter though, it occurred to me that the tiny cupcakes I'd been carrying around for the last hour would never make it to Brussels, and I certainly wasn't going to eat them all, so I offered them to the nice young woman for being so helpful. Her eyes lit up: "Really? I have a colleague who's leaving the company today and he's my favourite person in the world. He's leaving right now. Here are your tickets, I gotta go!"

She hopped up from her desk and raced to the back of the office, disappearing through a staff door. I heard some shouting and cheering, and lots of other happy noises, and then I checked my phone for my route back to Cambridge.

When I knew where I was going, I started out of the station only to hear the sound of frantic footsteps coming in my direction. The woman was still so excited, but now she wanted to thank me properly. Gushing, she hugged me, afraid she was going to cry. Somehow, those nine tiny cupcakes had deeply affected her. I hugged her back and continued on my way.

We all have the tendency, occasional or otherwise, to forget that every person around us is in fact a living, breathing person, with a story of their own and deep emotional connections to people we will likely never meet. I know that I'm personally guilty of this more than I'm comfortable with, and this experience surprised me, so I wanted to share.