I am at the UPS store to drop off a package and the woman who runs it has had surgery, her arm held immobile away from her body with a plastic brace, a thin plastic tube dangling from beneath her shirt.
"I had surgery yesterday," she says. She's bustling around, trying to straighten floor mats with one hand. She can scarcely bend down. "oh I look terrible."
"Yesterday!" I said. "No, you look great, are you kidding? I'd still be on the couch." We don't know each other really but I recognize her in the way you recognize someone who notarizes all your documents. Good grade in social interaction, I tell myself.
"Can you throw my hair up for me before you go?" she says, to the tall young woman who's behind the counter. "Sorry," she says to me.
"Don't worry about it," I say. "It's really tough when you can't--" I gesture vaguely, meaning, "do anything for yourself."
"She can't take a shower for three days," tall young woman whose name, I have learned, is Lena, says.
"And she takes five showers a day--"
"It's not five," she protests. "This is my son, by the way," she says, gesturing at the college age guy who unlocked the door.
"Hello," we say to each other. He says to her,
"You're gonna be stinky."
"Sometimes it's five, but--" I'm feeling like part of the family. I'm smiling about how funny it will be that this woman can't take her showers.
"It'll feel great when you finally can," I say, and we all agree yes it will. Everyone--even me--is vaguely surprised when I hold up my package and say, tentatively,
"oh! right," she says. The son scans my QR code.
"Feel better!" I call as I leave.
"You take care now," she says.
Look at this woman--older, ugly in an unremarkable way, raspy voiced, ratty hair--surrounded by love. Lena's gentle hands combing down through her hair, looping it up. Her son's voice, quiet and fond.
Don't let them tell you love is hard, hard to find, hard to keep. Don't let them tell you to stay perfect or else. It's not true.
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