Note: I wrote this almost a month ago while sitting at a Starbucks while waiting for someone who never arrived. She knows I've forgiven her, though. Let's just say I was able to Make Lemonade of the situation :) and get some thoughts written down.
Yesterday, I gave to someone. Yeah, me. If you know me, I'm not the most heartless person in the world, but I'm definitely not the most charitable either.
On my way home from some errands, I noticed an old homeless man on a corner holding a cardboard sign. He looked like someone who actually needed help, not one of those others. You know, the people who are too lazy to get an actual job, so they buy some old clothes at Goodwill and trash them so they can look legit holding the cardboard sign they made from the box their new TV came in.
Anyway, I'd had lunch at Subway earlier in the day and for dessert, I purchased three white chocolate macadamia nut cookies, which are my absolute favorite. It's been months since I had any so naturally I was stoked to devour them.
When I pulled up to this homeless man, my heart immediately hurt for him. I'm not really sure why I developed such compassion in this moment; I usually ignore them, to be honest. I blame my ever-increasing lack of faith in humanity.
My mind went to my wallet, which i realized I had emptied shortly before at Dutch Bros.
Then I looked in my passenger seat and saw my bag of cookies which seemed to radiate an inspiring energy. The choral sounds of the Halo theme music resonating in my brain at the sight of those delicious cookies, I grabbed the bag and handed them through the window to the man. No second thought as to how it would affect me (for better or for worse), no thought of what had been a growing anticipation for the glorious taste of the greatest cookies on earth. I mean, I had been prepared to eat them ceremoniously, votive candles and all.
There was traffic behind me, so I didn't get a chance to say anything to him before driving off, but I caught what I'm pretty sure was, "Thank you, you're a good man."
At any rate, what hit me the hardest was the look on his face. It's difficult to fully describe, but I'll tell you this: he was grateful. I had made his day a little better and that made me happy.
Driving away, I couldn't wipe the smile off my face. And I won't say for sure, but a tear or two may have formed in my eyes...
All in all, it was a good day. I made someone less fortunate than myself a little happier than they were a few minutes before I came along.
I just hope he wasn't allergic to white chocolate or macadamia nuts...FML.
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