Looking Up

I went to my doctor’s office the other day. It was 7:30 a.m. and I hadn’t had any coffee yet. I was getting my blood work done at PartnerMD. The nurse said I was getting a CMP to measure my CBC, LDL, HDL, and a whole bunch of other letters of the alphabet. Although this may be TMI, she handed me a JAR and asked me to PEE in it. 

On the way out of the elevator, I was looking down at the floor and almost walked into a woman who was getting onto the elevator. Two problems: (1) I got off on the wrong floor, and (2) I almost bowled over a little lady (4’10”) who was pushing a medical supply cart. I said, “I’m so sorry, that’s what I get for looking down instead of looking up.” 

 “We’ve all been looking down over the last six months. I understand completely,” she replied. I could see that her eyes were smiling even though I couldn’t see any teeth underneath her N95 mask.

“I think I need to start looking up. Maybe that’s a good lesson for all of us,” I said. “You can say that again, baby,” she replied. Then she reached out and gave me a pat on the back as we both exited. 

It was a brief encounter, but it changed my disposition for the entire week. Earlier in the week, I was using Google to look up reasons why everyone was in such a bad mood. Was it a full moon? Was Mercury in retrograde? Or is everyone just suffering COVID-19 fatigue? I don’t know, but things got better for me (and the people around me) after I “bumped” into that nice lady in the elevator. She brightened my day and I think I brightened hers. In that moment, we made a connection.

The big takeaway for me is that things are looking up...as long as we keep making connections.

Speaking of "things are looking up," I got my test results back and they look pretty dang good.