same smile

i need to document this because i feel like i'm losing my mind.

went to three different places today:

• post office
• pharmacy
• grocery store

at the post office, the clerk smiled at me. specific smile. friendly but not too friendly. helpful but not too helpful.

at the pharmacy, different person. SAME SMILE. exact same expression.

at the grocery store, the cashier. SAME. SMILE.

i stood in the parking lot after and just... stared at my car for like five minutes trying to process this.

it's not that everyone is being nice. people are nice. that's normal. it's that they're being nice in the EXACT same way. same facial expression. same head tilt. same tone.

i feel insane writing this down.

called sarah to talk about it and she said "people smile when they're happy. isn't that nice? everyone seems so much happier lately."

and she's RIGHT. everyone DOES seem happier.

but happiness is supposed to look different on different people. right?

i asked if she'd noticed everyone acting similar and she just said "similar how?" and i couldn't explain it in a way that didn't make me sound paranoid.

so i dropped it.

maybe i AM paranoid. maybe i'm so used to people being stressed and anxious that normal calm happiness looks weird to me.

but i don't think that's it.