The other afternoon I was standing at my back window, coffee in hand, doing what I probably spend far too much time doing. “People Watching” Little did I know that an ordinary moment in the car park was about to make me think about something many of us quietly long for… feeling valued.
Now before anyone starts imagining binoculars and suspicious behaviour, let me explain.
I live in a second-storey unit, and from the back of my place I can see the car park below. It’s not exactly the French Riviera. There are no gondolas drifting past or glamorous celebrities wandering around. Mostly it’s people arriving home from work, carrying shopping bags, wrestling toddlers out of car seats or trying to remember where they left their keys.
It’s surprisingly entertaining.
This particular afternoon I noticed a gentleman pull into the car park after work. You could almost feel the relief as he switched off the engine. The end of another workday.
Almost immediately the door to one of the units opened and out came his partner to greet him.
I smiled.
There’s something rather lovely about that, isn’t there? After a day, a week or a lifetime of life rushing everyone in different directions, someone still walks outside just to say, “You’re home.”
He climbed out of the car, they exchanged a quick peck on the cheek, shared a few words I couldn’t hear, and for a moment I thought, “Well, that’s nice.”
Then the plot took a rather unexpected turn.
Then Something Unexpected Happened
Sitting beside his work car was what I assumed was their main car.
Without hesitation, he wandered straight over to it.
Not because the tyre looked flat.
Someone had not bumped it.
Neither was there was a scratch down the side.
No.
There were perhaps… three microscopic specks of dust. Four if you were being particularly fussy.
Now when I say dust, I don’t mean the sort that makes you write “Wash me” with your finger. I mean the kind of dust that only exists if the sunlight catches it at exactly the right angle while you’re standing on one leg with excellent eyesight.
Before I really knew what was happening, he began walking slowly around the entire car.
Flick.
Flick.
Tiny little brush of the fingertips.
Another flick.
Step.
Flick again.
Round and round he went, removing invisible particles that, if left untouched, would almost certainly have caused absolutely no problems whatsoever.
His partner simply stood there chatting away as though this happened every Tuesday.
Which, judging by her complete lack of surprise, it probably did.
I couldn’t stop laughing.
Not at him.
Well… perhaps just a little.
The Things We Take Pride In
The more I watched him, the more I found myself smiling.
You could tell this wasn’t just a car.
He genuinely loved it.
Not in an unhealthy, “I love my car more than my family” sort of way, but in that quiet pride some people have over the things they care for.
I found myself inventing an entire backstory.
He was probably the sort of person who booked the service a week before it was actually due because heaven forbid the odometer tick over another hundred kilometres.
I could picture him pulling into the hand car wash every Saturday morning, chatting to the staff while they carefully dried every panel instead of risking the automatic brushes.
I’d be willing to bet there wasn’t an empty coffee cup rolling around on the floor or a collection of old shopping receipts hiding in the glove box.
I suspect the tyres always had exactly the right amount of air.
The fuel tank probably never dipped below a quarter.
If a bird flew overhead, he was already mentally calculating whether he needed to wash the bonnet again.
Meanwhile, In My World…
My own car has reached that stage of life where opening the door feels a little like an archaeological dig. I’m fairly sure future historians will learn quite a bit about me.
There are reusable shopping bags that have become permanent residents. A lonely drink bottle that I’m fairly sure belongs to nobody. Enough loose coins to almost pay for a coffee. And somewhere under the passenger seat is probably a rogue French fry from a road trip I can no longer remember taking.
My dashboard occasionally reminds me that a service is due.
I politely thank it for its opinion and assure it we’ll discuss the matter… soon.
Very soon.
Possibly next week.
Or the week after.
Watching this gentleman gently brushing away those tiny specks of dust made me realise we were looking at exactly the same object but seeing completely different things.
To me, it was simply a car.
To him, it was something worth looking after.
And somehow, standing there with my coffee, I found myself becoming strangely fascinated by that difference.
Where Our Attention Goes – Do we leave people feeling valued?
Standing there with my coffee, I realised something else.
The truth is, I have absolutely no idea what happened next.
I couldn’t hear a single word they were saying.
For all I know they might have spent the next hour laughing together over dinner, talking about their day and planning a weekend away. They could have the happiest relationship imaginable.
That wasn’t really the point.
What fascinated me was what I’d noticed first.
Here was this lovely young woman who had actually come outside to welcome him home after work. I thought that was such a beautiful thing to do. Life is busy. We often yell “Hi!” from another room while we’re trying to finish cooking dinner or empty the dishwasher. Yet she’d walked outside simply because he was home.
And there he was, gently making his way around the car, flicking away tiny specks of dust.
She wandered around beside him, chatting quite happily. She certainly didn’t seem bothered in the slightest.
But my mind couldn’t help wandering.
I wondered what would have happened if, instead of heading straight for the car, he’d scooped her up into a great big hug, spun her around and laughed, as though seeing her was the very best part of coming home.
I wondered what it feels like to receive the same level of care and attention that we so effortlessly give to the things we treasure.
Then I Turned the Question Around
It also made me wonder about myself.
Not because I spend my evenings polishing my car—my poor car would be delighted if I even remembered where the chamois cloth lives—but because perhaps we all have our own version of this.
Maybe it’s our boat.
Garden.
Golf clubs.
Our perfectly organised pantry.
Work.
Even maybe our phone.
The things we protect, maintain and fuss over without even thinking.
It made me curious.
Do the people we love always receive the same careful attention we so naturally give to the things we value? Do we leave them feeling valued?
I’m not sure I know the answer. But I do know that little moment in the car park made me look at my own life a little differently.
But I haven’t stopped thinking about that little walk around the car park.
The People We Stop Seeing
I’ve been thinking about that little moment in the car park far more than I probably should.
Not because I think the gentleman loved his car more than his partner. I honestly don’t believe that for a second.
I suspect he adored her.
But it did make me wonder about something I read a little while ago.
Apparently our brains are brilliant at noticing things that are new, unusual or changing. It’s one of the reasons you notice a tiny scratch on a brand-new car but barely register the picture that’s been hanging on your lounge room wall for the last ten years.
Familiarity has a funny way of becoming invisible. It’s not because we care less. Quite the opposite. Sometimes the people we love most become so beautifully woven into our everyday lives that our brains stop noticing what our hearts never stopped appreciating.
Maybe people are a little like that too.
Not invisible because they don’t matter.
Invisible because they’ve become part of the scenery of our everyday lives.
The person who makes your morning coffee.
The husband who always locks the doors at night.
The wife who remembers everyone’s birthdays.
The child who still rings every Sunday afternoon.
The friend who never forgets to check in.
They’re always there.
Always dependable.
Always part of the rhythm of life.
And perhaps that’s exactly why we sometimes stop noticing all the little things they quietly do.
It’s never intentional.
The Problem With Familiarity
Life simply gets noisy.
We’re thinking about tomorrow’s meeting, what’s for dinner, whether we’ve paid the electricity bill, if the washing will dry before the rain arrives, and somehow the people we love most become woven so naturally into our days that we forget to really see them.
The funny thing is, I don’t think relationships usually change because of one enormous moment.
I think they change through thousands of tiny ones.
A hug that wasn’t given.
A thank you that stayed in our head instead of coming out of our mouth.
A smile we meant to share but forgot because we were distracted.
Or perhaps a partner quietly walking beside us while we flicked imaginary specks of dust from something that was never going to notice our effort.
Maybe love isn’t only about how deeply we feel. Perhaps one of the greatest gifts we can give another person is simply making them feel valued.
Maybe it’s also about where our attention quietly lands each day.
The Dust Can Wait
I don’t know whether that gentleman ever realised someone was watching from a second-storey window.
I don’t know whether he still flicks the dust from his car every afternoon.
And I certainly don’t know anything about the story of their relationship.
But I do know this.
That tiny moment has stayed with me.
Not because of the car.
Because it reminded me how easy it is to carefully look after the things we value while accidentally overlooking the people we value even more.
None of us do it on purpose.
Life simply gets busy.
The washing needs folding.
The emails keep arriving.
The shopping list grows longer.
The dog wants walking.
The grandchildren want cuddles.
The phone buzzes.
The car needs washing.
And somewhere amongst all of that, the people we love quietly become part of the background of our everyday lives.
Maybe that’s why they’re the easiest to take for granted.
Perhaps the real challenge isn’t to love people more.
Most of us already do.
Perhaps it’s simply to notice them more.
The Greatest Gift We Can Give
To greet them properly when they come home.
Stop what we’re doing for thirty seconds and really listen.
To offer the hug before we check our phone.
To say, “I’m glad you’re here,” even if we’ve said it a thousand times before.
Because people aren’t like cars.
Dust can always be brushed away tomorrow.
The little moments we miss with the people we love don’t always wait for us.
So the next time someone walks through your front door, perhaps leave the dust for a minute.
You never know.
That welcome home might be the part of their day they remember the most.
I have no idea whether he’ll be out there tomorrow brushing away another three specks of dust. But I know this—I hope that before he notices the car, he notices the person who walked outside simply because he was coming home.
