One summer I went to an amusement park with my little sister. I was nervous because of general anxiety I have anyway, but now I was responsible for anything that could go wrong while being in charge of her. Nonetheless, we were having a good time, even up to the point where we got hungry and I knew we should tackle the food carts.
Doing things like ordering food and talking to people is nerve-racking while having social anxiety, but so far things had been good, and I wasn’t too worried about going up to the counter. There was a nice breeze and I had my sister to talk to while waiting in line. Ordering the food went smooth enough and as I took the plates once they were ready, I made eye contact with a boy working in the back of the cart.
The assurance I got from someone around my age looking interested in me was simply wonderful. I don’t know how else to put it. It just felt nice. They didn’t even have to smile — we just met eyes — but I suddenly felt nice in what I was wearing, an outfit I had jubilantly planned earlier that day. The boy at the waffle cart also made me feel noticed, like I mattered in the gist of the universe. I abruptly felt important for what I was there doing, for bringing my sister with me on a nice day out in the world while simultaneously taking her off my parent’s hands for a little break. For once, with all my anxieties, I felt a little more okay and apart of what was going on around me. I was in the moment.
There was a pretty girl in a choir concert who I could not stop looking at once. She saw me in the audience while I was looking at her, so I smiled and she smiled back — a lot. So big I knew she felt the same happiness from my smile that I received from hers, which also made me feel apart of something bigger than me. I felt if we could go around making others smile, we should.
I went back and forth on what I should title this. On one hand, What a Smile Can Do is a safe bet; not knowing everyone’s experiences with smiles, I can’t ascertain that this is what they do for sure. I only know what they’ve done for me. But on the other hand, I like to believe smiles just have this power, whether we like it or not.
