Last week, I spent most of my time in one position: horizontal. Blissfully sprawled across a sun lounger, surrounded by the girls I finished my degree with, drink in hand, no responsibilities in sight. A whole year had passed since graduation, and somehow, in what felt like the blink of an eye, we’d all landed in wildly different lives — corporate jobs, freelance chaos, the occasional existential breakdown — but for five uninterrupted days, we were just us again. No Teams messages. No work calls. No LinkedIn humblebrags. Just sand, €5 Aperols, and the kind of deep-belly laughter that only comes from people who knew you before you had a “work email signature.”
It was one of those rare, golden moments where everything aligned. A kind of calm we didn’t know we’d been craving until we had it. We were all the most relaxed, and frankly, the most ourselves, we’d been in a long while. And then, like all great things, it ended … but the journey home was not quite the blissful finale I imagined.
While the other girls headed off on a different flight, I’d chosen Stansted (more convenient and less faff). We said our goodbyes, and I made my way to the gate, desperate for silence and a bit of headspace. I found my seat next to a sweet elderly couple, plugged in my headphones, and… nothing. Silence. Broken. Dead. The horror.
Now, I understand this is not a crisis in the truest sense, but when you’ve just come off a trip packed with constant conversation and shared beds and group schedules, a non-functioning pair of headphones on a 3.5-hour flight feels personally offensive. I sat there scrolling, seething quietly, until a notification pinged onto my screen: “Flight delayed. New departure time: 12:10.”
At the same time, the elderly couple beside me were clearly confused and trying to figure out what was going on. I leaned over, asked if they were flying to Stansted too, and when they nodded, I showed them the update on my phone.
It was one of those small, accidental kindnesses. I didn’t really think about it, but somehow it cracked open a full conversation. They’d been married for over fifty years. They talked about growing older, about the fragility of independence, about how important it is to find joy in everyday things. We laughed about family holidays, awkward hotel beds, and the fact that flying is never not stressful, even when you’ve done it a hundred times. When they were eventually taken to the gate, I found myself sitting there feeling… lighter. More connected. Weirdly grounded. And all because my headphones didn’t work.
And just when I thought the travel gods were done with me, they weren’t.
At the gate, a very enthusiastic employee from a budget airline (let’s just say it rhymes with “Cryin’ Air”) asked me to test my bag in the cabin-size checker. Now, in my defence, the bag had fit on the way out, but that was before I’d taken the unsolicited advice of a wine merchant and bought two bottles of “very special” wine. Naturally, the bag didn’t fit. And naturally, I was seconds away from a €50 fine I absolutely did not want to pay.
Enter: a stranger. A man behind me, clearly a seasoned traveller and maybe part-time magician, leaned in and said, “Start putting your clothes on.” I blinked. “Now,” he said. “Layer up.”
So I did. T-shirts, jumpers, the swimsuit cover-up, a random hoodie from the bottom of the bag — I put on everything short of my sandals. The airline worker started objecting, but I was too far gone. The man kept encouraging me like a proud father, and finally, miraculously, the bag fit. I was waved through, looking slightly ridiculous but extremely proud.
Then, just before getting on the plane, a woman turned to me and said quietly, “I’m glad they let you through. I was going to offer you space in my bag if they didn’t.” She didn’t owe me anything. She hadn’t even spoken to me. She just saw someone in a slightly ridiculous situation and instinctively wanted to help. I was speechless.
And the man? He later boarded the same bus, travelling with his young daughter, and told me, “I’d want someone to stand up for her if she were on her own.” Simple. Thoughtful. Human.
These weren’t major, earth-shattering moments. But somehow, they changed everything. Because somewhere between the broken headphones and the makeshift outfit change, I was reminded that despite what our timelines and screens keep telling us, people are actually good. Often kind. Frequently funny. And, when you’re open to it, surprisingly generous.
It’s easy, especially in a world that lives online, to mistake perceived connection for the real thing. We watch each other’s lives unfold through stories and reposted memes, and convince ourselves we’re connected because we liked someone’s beach picture or left a fire emoji on a BeReal. But when we zoom out from that hyper-curated feed and actually start paying attention to the humans standing next to us in real life – not filtered, not scripted, not hashtagged – there’s a whole world of quiet kindness waiting to surprise us.
We’ve become so accustomed to existing in our own little digital echo chambers that we often forget how much richness there is in unfiltered connection — in the spontaneous chats, the shared inconveniences, the awkward eye contact at gates and check-in counters that can turn into something far more comforting than another 10-second TikTok. There is something deeply grounding about looking up from your phone and realising that the world isn’t just happening to you, it’s happening with you. And everyone else is muddling through it just the same.
And, as if the universe wanted to really round off the lesson, I finally boarded the plane and took my seat next to a man who, as it turned out, was a fellow history fanatic. What started as small talk about how delayed we were turned into a full-blown conversation about my degree, our mutual obsession with obscure revolutions, and why historical gossip is actually the best kind of gossip.
By the time we landed, I’d had three meaningful conversations with three complete strangers. All of it unplanned. None of it is performative. And every moment of it so much more real than anything I’d scrolled past that week.
So next time life throws a little inconvenience your way, maybe don’t rush to fix it. Maybe lean into it. Talk to the person next to you. Help the girl with the overstuffed bag. Or be the girl in three jumpers and a bikini, laughing at the absurdity of it all.
Because honestly? That might just be the best part.
BEYOND THE WORD 