Not sure what happened
When the chronic noticer (and recovering people-pleaser) gets tired of noticing
Welcome to Pushing Ink, where we navigate the broken world of work, detour into pop culture, and occasionally embark on whimsy-filled sidequests… among other hot topics
“I am not sure what happened” has become something of a tagline for me the last couple of weeks. Picture an adult yearbook where beneath my smiling headshot sits a simple line meant to capture my essence.
Something like … Beth: Not sure what happened. OR Beth: I am only here to establish an alibi.
In odd fashion for yours truly, I have not been especially gracious with the … er … population. Not all of it. Just pockets of it. Moments. The kind that sneak up on you and then suddenly unsavory verbiage exits your mouth before you can reel it back in.
Case in point: the hub and I were standing in line at the grocery store. The place was packed. Everyone apparently deciding to check out at the exact same moment, too. Cashiers at the helm, a steady throng of shoppers throwing items onto belts, the sound of plastic bag battles. Cause goodness knows, those slick little nightmares never cooperate.
Anyway, an individual ahead of us had a cart brimming with goods. Ours was likewise full. An individual behind us had only a few items.
Generally, in such situations, the hub and I tend to notice such a thing and thus wave the lighter load ahead of us.
Once, not to float our own boats, we paid for a stranger’s groceries when their government card wouldn’t work. The line getting progressively longer and angrier. They were older, clearly stressed, and the hub simply stepped up.
Make of it what you will.
But on this particular day, something about the person behind us kept needling me. They repeatedly leaned around our cart, peering down the line, face tight with irritation, as though our very existence was a personal affront to their afternoon.
Usually my brain latches onto some story like they’ve got somewhere important to be, someone waiting (or dying!) and the like. However, that story has become tiresome for yours truly. Don’t we all have somewhere preferably to be, something far more fun to do in comparison to the chore that is the weekly grocery trip?
In short, I did not feel the least bit charitable.
The stranger could wait.
I began unloading our groceries onto the belt, trying my best to ignore the constant peering. Fighting the urge to, noticeably, block their view. When the cart was fully unloaded, we noted all baggers were swamped with other customers, and began to fill bags with our purchases.
Meanwhile, Ants in Their Pants (as my grandmother used to say about the grandkids) continued their silent campaign of exaggerated impatience.
Again, I tried to ignore it. I really did. But when they pushed their cart forward to physically nudge my hub out of the way so they could stand before the card reader, I had enough.
“Seems someone is in a hurry,” I said, tossing our last bag into our cart, scowl firmly in place. And then, far louder than necessary, I added that if something were truly that urgent one shouldn’t stop for groceries.
We departed.
While loading the car, I glanced over my shoulder, that familiar sensation of being watched prickling at the back of my head. Sure enough, Stranger in a Massive Hurry stood a few parking spaces away, wearing the very scowl I still carried.
Ah, look, twinsies!
I didn’t care.
Sadly, that moment felt like a bookend to another occurrence earlier that week.
My youngest has been dealing with significant health issues including daily headaches. Now nausea that has entered the equation leading to weight loss she absolutely does not need. I have been worried, to say the least.
We went for a follow-up with her neurologist over an hour away from home, cautiously hopeful but not exactly convinced yet another round of suggested medications would end this near two-year saga.
At checkout, we waited. Five minutes passed. An older family of three exited a room, avoided checkout entirely to go straight to the check-in window, where they were greeted almost immediately.
I was perturbed, to put it gently.
With an audible sigh, I maneuvered us behind the line cutters as it was obvious no one was coming to the checkout window, just as another couple came out to check out, as well.
Growing more irritated by the minute, I announced, rather loudly, to the new couple, that everyone was apparently waiting at check-in to check out. I wanted to make sure they weren’t overlooked, too. But, to be perfectly honest, I wanted the cutters to feel my irritation. The folks who decided to dismiss those already waiting, to skip ahead.
Oy.
So unlike me to be this uncharitable. Yet, I sucked up my irritation when we finally got to check out. Then, as we departed the office, I began a loud rant to my daughter about people who lack situational awareness. People who move through the world wearing horse blinders, oblivious to how their actions ripple outward. I quieted when we helped an elder individual onto the elevator, obviously lost in the labyrinth that is a large city hospital. Only to start my verbal Godzilla-like rampage again once exiting onto the lobby floor.
Rather surprisingly, I continued even as we passed a small cluster of people seated on a bench outside the building. Obviously waiting on a ride. Their faces turned at my weighted words. Eyebrows lifted. My commentary akin to the town crier just minus a bell.
It was the line cutters seated on that bench.
Oy.
I know what you are thinking. They were at the doctors, too! The neurologist. Maybe they received bad news. Moving through the soupy denial of health gone wrong in a world that never stops turning for anything or anyone.
Yeah, I know. I thought about that, too! I get it. I totally emphasize. However, sometimes you get tired of being the one who notices. The one running a silent headcount of fairness. The one allowing lighter grocery carts ahead. The one who would have noticed a tired, sad young woman standing at an empty check-out window and said to the receptionist, something along the line of, I think that person was here first. A nod affirming said acknowledgement in their waiting direction. Even if my world had been turned upside down, because that’s always been me.
Oy times two.
This is so unlike me. Or at least unlike the version of me I’ve carried around for most of my life. The one who smoothed rough edges. Emotionally carried a room. The one who waved people ahead. The one who absorbed irritation so everyone else could stay happy or, at the very least, level.
I don’t know if this is what getting older does to people. Not hardening exactly, but unhooking? Maybe it’s the recovering people-pleaser in me. Maybe it’s years of workplace behaviors that reward the loudest and the pushiest. Maybe it’s watching a culture drift further into individual agency and urgency, where everyone is late for something (always someone else’s fault!) and no awareness of anyone else’s existence.
Or maybe it’s simpler. Perhaps when you’ve spent years living with a low, steady hum of responsibility, of background worry that never quite powers down, your tolerance narrows. The bandwidth shrinks. The patience you once handed out freely now feels rationed. I am still someone who notices. I still clock the room, the line, the overlooked person at the other window. I just no longer feel obligated to swallow every slight quietly because I have problems, too.
Will I soon look down a long grocery line in irritation or ignore someone else waiting in line?
I don’t know.
I’m not sure what happened.
But I am beginning to suspect that whatever it is, it might not be entirely a loss. You know, when the chronic noticer (and recovering people-pleaser) gets tired of noticing for everyone else’s benefit, certainly not my own. Of course, this speaks to much larger issues when applied to society as a whole and not just one lone individual. We will discuss that another day because it is not a pretty outcome for any of us.
What do you think?
Until next time, my friends—take your breaks, chase a sidequest or two, breathe, and be ready to lead with a little whimsy.
Beth aka The Pushing Ink
Now for some humor (NSFW)
About me
I’ve been fascinated by the broken world of work (and other random hot topics) for as long as I can remember. My first job was at 12, delivering newspapers—an early lesson in unpredictability, absurdity, and the occasional human weirdness. Since then, it’s been one head-scratching employment adventure after another.
I initially went back to school late-ish to become a divorce counselor, but life nudged me toward what actually excites me: poking at the quirks, snobbery, and chaos of work itself. I earned a bachelor’s in Applied Psychology (work psych) in 2014 and a master’s in Organizational Leadership in 2018.
I’ve spent decades bouncing in and out of newspapers (city beats, courtrooms, the whole nine yards) and wandering through the nonprofit world’s strange corridors. Now, with Pushing Ink (a former newspaper column turned passion project), I write about leadership, people-pleasing and the tyranny of niceness, pop culture, humor, the occasional absurd sidequest and more.
Still very much a work-in-progress like myself, you can find me online under The Pushing Ink on YouTube and other social channels (minus the former bird app), where I keep experimenting with whimsy, insights, and chaos.