I’ve been spiraling for about three weeks now. Just complete, suffocating burnout. Between the job hunt, bills piling up, and feeling like I'm failing everyone around me, I’ve been walking around like a raw nerve.

Today, I finally snapped. Over a stupid carton of eggs.

I was in the grocery store parking lot, and as I was loading my trunk, the egg carton slipped. Half of them shattered on the asphalt. It sounds so incredibly minor, but it was the absolute last straw. I just sat down on the curb, put my head in my hands, and started crying. Not a quiet, polite cry, but that ugly, chest-heaving sobbing where you just feel completely defeated by the world. I felt so pathetic.

I was waiting for people to walk past, stare, or judge me.

Instead, this older guy walking to his car stopped. He didn’t ask "what’s wrong?" or tell me to "cheer up" (which probably would have made me cry harder). He just quietly walked over, set his own groceries down, and sat on the dirty curb right next to me.

He didn't say anything for a solid minute. Then he just said, "Man, some days the eggs just win, don't they?"

It was so absurd and gentle that I actually choked out a laugh through the tears. We sat there for maybe five minutes. He told me a quick, goofy story about a time he dropped an entire gallon of paint down his stairs, we cleaned up the broken shells together, and he even tried to give me five bucks to buy a new carton (I didn't take it, but the gesture killed me).

Before he left, he patted my shoulder and said, "You're doing better than you think you are. Keep going."

I don't know who he was, and I'll probably never see him again. But he met me at my absolute lowest, messiest moment today and chose to sit in the dirt with me instead of walking by.

I'm sitting in my car writing this, still a little shaky, but my chest doesn't feel as tight anymore. I’m just so incredibly grateful that there are still people out there who will sit on a curb with a stranger.

If you're having a "broken eggs" kind of day... please hang in there. Someone out there cares, even if you haven't met them yet.