Someone Else's Happiness
On vacation sitting in a bar in Arizona, I order a pizza while my host makes her rounds to ensure she says hello all of her friends. I'm considering filling out a slip to sing some karaoke when the couple next to me strikes up a conversation. They're decked out in their western attire for date night and she's trying to get her nerve up to sing. We're all three spectating and complimenting the free spirit on the dance floor. Then they go on to tell me about how rough that bar used to be, which makes them appreciate her dancing even more. It seemed to be a mixture of 80's MTV and some kind of ritual dancing. The free spirit walks over to the bar and sits down as the three of us are looking at her and talking among ourselves about how much we admire people like her and I get a hairy eyeball from the guy sitting on the stool next to her. I'm thinking, oh no...here we go...so I look away and start talking music with my new friends and we put in some songs to sing. We talk about how nice and loving my host is as we scan the bar to see if she has been kidnapped, lol... and every time my eyes go past this guy...he's still staring at me...and I continue to look past him...think I might have even given a quick nod once.
I'm thinking he saw me walk in with my host and has a thing for her...or he thinks we were talking about him and staring at him when we were admiring the free spirit...I didn't know why he was doing it, but it sure was making my PTSD start to trigger. I've learned a lot about my PTSD and controlling my impulses, so I continue to enjoy my evening and ignore him.
My host makes it back to her seat just in time for pizza, and I divvy it up making sure to include my new friends. We had just eaten a delicious home cooked meal a couple hours before so we weren't very hungry...just a case of the munchies, so I had a couple extra slices. Whenever I'm at a bar and have pizza, I always ask the bartender if they would like a slice...but she wasn't hungry, and I'm not much on leftover pizza...and the closest person to us was the dude with the eye problems.
I'm an "olive branch" type of person so what the heck, I offered the man a slice of pizza. That was the chance he was waiting for! It was on now!! His face lit up as he launched off his bar stool towards the pizza and the bartender rolled her eyes with a grin as she refilled his soda!!!
I'm trying not to cry just typing this. I was choked up then, and knew I had to write about it.
A couple tissues later, and I'm back.
He was talking so fast and he seemed to have some kind of mental or spectrum issues so I couldn't make out most of what he said...but what I got from it was he lost his mother and sister in January and they used to eat pizza together all the time...it was their favorite! He was so happy and the floodgates had opened :) He talked for 20 minutes and that's all I could get from what he said...but I got just as much out of it as he did.
Someone else's happiness.
