Simple Things, & a Llama.

I’ve realized over the past few days how easy it is to make someone’s day better. I wouldn’t have realized this if a long chain of events hadn’t happened, but lucky for me, they did. I walk home everyday. It’s a long walk, and it is often hot by the time school gets out. So after I’m done saying goodbye to the people I like most at school, I take off. I cross the football field (which is often awkward due to the fact that sports practices are sometimes going on after school), I walk down the street onto a path, through two tunnels, and then I’m released into a neighborhood that’s somewhat near mine. Well, yesterday, I decided to walk home this way, and I was in the neighborhood. A lot of the houses in that neighborhood are older, and they have large yards. There’s a ranch that I walk by. And just yesterday, I saw a woman, probably in her forties or fifties, and decided to simply say “Hello.”

She was working, so I was unsure if she’d say much back. She greeted me. “How are you?” she asked. I was a little surprised that she’d asked, normally people barely look at you when you walk by. And so I stuck around for a bit to talk to her. She told me about the animals they have one the ranch: a llama named Thunder, an alpaca, a yak, and two sheep. She was very nice, and I think she was glad to have gotten to talk to someone while she chopped up some branches and stuffed them in a garbage can.

Today I saw her again, as I was hoping. She was working on the branches, and stuffing them into garbage cans. Thunder chewed on some of them, because they were close to the fence. She told me a lot, and asked me a lot of questions. I learned a lot about her. I think it’s nice to be able to talk to someone during my walk home. It makes it less lonesome. She didn’t go to college, so she told me she has been doing lots of odd jobs.

After a while, I felt I should leave her to her work, so I said exactly that. Before I left, she asked me my name. “I’m Alex,” I said to her. And she told me her name: Kathy. Kathy is a nice woman, and I’m happy to have met her. She said that maybe she’ll see me again when I’m walking home from school. I think I would be happy to talk to her again. She told me to have a great weekend, and I hope she has a great weekend, too.

Simple things like that can make your day better. Anytime I’m walking home and someone says hello to me, it makes me feel a bit better, and less alone. There’s a boy that goes to my school, and I really like him. Days that I get to talk to him have me go home smiling to myself. I wonder if he knows that the things he says to me can make me happy for the rest of the day. Simple things, I’m telling you, can really change the outcome of your day. I hope I change the outcome of other people’s days, as they do mine. From now on, I think I’ll start going out of my way to make my friends’ days better. I owe it to them.