I was at my daughter’s school orientation two weeks ago as she was starting her new school the following week. After settling the kids into their new classrooms, the parents were required to gather in the school hall for an hour-long briefing.
I went into the hall and sat in the center row of chairs, away from the edge of the hall where the sun’s rays crept in a little. As I waited for the session to start, I started browsing my phone, replying to some work messages and going through the orientation slides the school sent us. I was alone, my husband was running errands that morning, and will meet me later.
Suddenly, I heard a woman sliding over nearer to me. She sat down on the empty seat on my right and turned to greet her friends at the back row.
A smell wafted over to me and my senses were triggered. Not a good scent, I thought to myself.
It smelt heavily of sweat and body odour, and if you had read one of my older posts, I unfortunately had a sensitivity to smells since I suffer migraine attacks. Strong smells were one of my migraine triggers, if I let myself remain in the ‘thick of it’ long enough.
I had nothing against her, and I didn’t want to sound mean, but I had to protect my body from getting triggered into a migraine episode.
It didn’t matter if she wore a sweet smelling perfume or hung a strong smelling air freshener around her neck, as long as the smell was strong and invaded my air space for long enough, the right side of my temples would eventually start throbbing. An hour or two later I would need to seek out a dark, quiet room, pop in a painkiller and lay down to recover from my migraine. If I didn’t find a remedy for my migraines long enough, I would also end up throwing up and purging.
What do I do?
I did not want to offend her by moving a few seats away from her to my left.
I swung my whole body towards the left side, hoping some wind would blow my way and clear the air. It helped a little, but not much.
How do I move away without making it look like I was avoiding her? I thought to myself.
Five minutes passed. The principal was now speaking, and I was paying attention, at least half of my brain was.
I moved my butt a little more to the left of my chair, slight angling myself at the edge.
Then I thought to myself, that I was probably overthinking the whole matter, more than necessary.
So what if I moved two seats away, we didn’t know each other, it mattered not too much what she thought of me, and most probably, she wasn’t thinking about me at all.
Akin to how strangers in front of me in a queue are almost invisible to my perception, I’d only acknowledge in my head that there was a human body presence in front of me and think not more, I was probably that to her now as well.
I reminded myself no one cares what I did, literally, I knew nobody in that school hall that day.
Then I moved the two seats away from her.
Relieve!
A few minutes later, I turned to my right to check on her.
True enough, she was not thinking about me at all.
She had fallen asleep, her head hung over her front, and her eyes closed.
I felt sorry for her then, she must have worked hard earlier in the morning, potentially physical labor involved, hence her sweat and fatigue. Then she had to bring her kid to school at 8 am for orientation day, and attended the parent’s session.
She is a good mother, I thought to myself.
Or I could be making another story in my head, and overthinking this too.
Half an hour later, my husband arrived and the event concluded.
I do wonder sometimes what others think about, as they go about their day.
Do so many thoughts flow through their head in the span of 20-30 minutes, like mine tend to do.