Look, I promise the rest of the post won't be as depressing as the title. (He said, fingers crossed.)
Maybe it was the not-unattractive women both in front of and behind me in the checkout line, both of whom noticed what I had laid out on the counter, both smirking Funky Winkerbean-style as they perused my purchases.
As I noted the sum total of my trip to the grocery store, I wept for my spirit: Cat food, peanut butter, chocolate chip cookies and sandwich bags.
It looked so...pathetic. The combination of sandwich bags and peanut butter, like I'm stowing away the same pathetic foodstuff every day. Store-bought chocolate chip cookies, because I'm too paralyzed with stasis to even make my own. Cat food, because I'm turning into a crazy cat person. (Friskies Select cat food...not exactly the best of the best, but fairly top of the line for mass market stuff, thus suggesting the cats are eating better than me.)
I could probably defend my purchases if I absolutely had to, but seeing them on display like that made me feel so vulnerable, made me question whether I am in fact living, or have accepted the rest of my life as a long winding-down to death.
But hey, the woman ahead of me may have been judging my purchases, but how much moral authority did she carry? She bought a pack of Camels, a case of Bud Light and a bottle of Absolut--not enough for a party, but way more than one person should consume.
Besides, just because I'm in limbo now doesn't mean I'll be staying here. Sometimes--okay, most of the time--it feels like my life is in a holding pattern, but it was only a year ago I realized I felt as much love for the son of the woman I was dating as I did for her, that I was capable of being part of a family, something I had never previously considered possible. It didn't work out--for reasons I still don't understand--but Tabbatha and I still are friendly, and Paul and I still hang out together. That right there shows surprises are still possible in my life.
But such miracles won't happen on a regular basis, and there's still the drudgery of everyday existence: Peanut butter. Sandwich bags. Chocolate chip cookies. Cat food. Sometimes the comfort of the familiar isn't so comforting at all.
