running out of everything
It's always been my job to do the grocery shopping and it's always been one of the few chores that I enjoyed. I liked going to the supermarket, hesitating over varieties of potatoes, buying a cake mix just because the directions were in Portuguese, deciding whether I wanted a pint of ice cream or a box of popsicles. I'd happily load my cart to the brim, watch the food slide down the conveyor belt to the register, and carry the plastic bags to the car and then into the house. Even arranging the bottles and packages in the refrigerator and cabinets gave me a certain satisfaction and when I was done, looking at the tidy rows of groceries, I would feel that I had accomplished something worthwhile.
These days I search for excuses to avoid shopping. We should try that new restaurant that just opened. I'll pick up a pizza on the way home from work. I'm not really all that hungry anyway. But the truth is that everything is just a little harder than it used to be and the chores I once did willingly have become burdens, weighing me down like pockets filled with stones.
10 comments:
Oh gosh, it felt exactly that way for me for a long time. I could scarcely find the will to put away the dishes, or run a load of laundry. And yes, going to the grocery store felt like a monumental task.
I hope little by little all of those stones start disappearing one by one, and one day you will wake up feeling inexplicably lighter.
Exactly. This is why I am currently on the couch instead of sorting clean laundry or doing any of the million other things I have to do.
I am sorry it's like that for you too.
Julia: That's funny. I'm also on the couch surrounded by piles of clean laundry that have been sitting there since Wednesday. My problem, I think, is anxiety. I am so overwhelmed by the sheer magnitude of what I have to do these days that I have become paralyzed. And so nothing is getting done.
Self-defeating for sure.
Niobe: I'm sorry.
Yeah, I find it hard to do chores like this too. There's lots of babies at the grocery store...and sometimes, it's twins. Yikes. I wear a baseball cap, keep my head down and try to motor through the aisles. Haven't hit anyone with the cart yet, but I'm sure I look like a mad woman...traveling at the speed I do. I feel the weight of the grief too. And I'm tired of it touching every part of my life. Here's hoping for a little lighter burden, for us all.
I was there for a long, long time. Your image of the stones is just right. Thinking of you, especially tomorrow.
Lately I've been having mostly days like that again as well. The dishes, the laundry, shopping and cooking, pretty much all of the mundane tasks of *normal* life, feel so heavy.
Your description of enjoying the shopping process sounds congruent to mine. I also feel this way about the other tasks I mentioned (except the dishes--I hate the intire process and wish it didn't exist).
It really does get better eventually. Give yourself time and try not to have too many expectations for yourself.
um, yah...that should be "entire"...and I am too uptight to allow the typo to go unmentioned, since I noticed it.
With the return of spring I've been trying to behave as though I were still functional. Now I understand that it's the rocks in my pockets that keep me moving so slow.
Thinking of you.
Me too. I have plans every day to do so much, and very little of it actually happens. Every week I resolve that this week will be the one where the house actually gets really cleaned rather than straightened, and every week it just gets straightened. Or, I start the task and stop halfway. It just all seems so silly.
I'm subscribing to you immediately.
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