Reality… The Stuff Dreams Are Made Of

My girlfriend C-Rich is a classically-trained singer whose talents are apparently only on display with her church choir.

Hey!

I heard the chortling. I don’t judge her on her religious beliefs and I’m sure she’s not judging something about me – so get off my nuts about my churchy friend. I’m embracing diversity.

Anyway, *glares at readers* the instant message excerpt below got me thinking…

Peace 9:39 am
    We can no longer friends due to your anti-coffee-ness. I'm sorry. It's not me. It's you.

 C-Rich 9:40 am
    It’s just a phase.

 Peace 9:40 am
    Most of my life is a phase I'm still looking to outgrow

 C-Rich 9:42 am
    I'm still trying to figure out what I want to be when I finally accept that I'm an adult

 Peace 9:43 am
Right?!?!?!?
I mean, you and I, we grew up thinking we'd be one thing; and now we're another. It's very disconcerting

 C-Rich 9:44 am
    Yeah.
    I did not dream of being a Business Analyst slash Project Manager

 Peace 9:44 am
That, my-friend-who-is-no-longer-my-friend, is something I COMPLETELY understand. I still get a little freaked out when I try to draw the line from there to here. And, because it’s always super-productive *eyeroll,* I "what if" the crap out of every decision that led me to this incredibly uncomfortable chair.
That's both a metaphor and a truth. I need a different chair.

 C-Rich 9:47 am
    You're going to forget the coffee thing because everything else we share is magical.

 Peace 9:47 am
    It is. I’m not.

… about how the direction of our lives changes, and wondering why, once we realize we’re completely off-track, we become like rubber-neckers at a car wreck. We absolutely slow down to look at the grisly mess, but only stop to do something when we have both the time and no choice.

Have you ever tried to draw the line from where you were headed to where you are? Don’t. It's depressing. And sometimes unseemly.

But, having done it...

I took a seat in Dr. Pinot Grigio’s office to reflect on what I discovered so that I could appropriately place blame, because, you know, that’s way easier than admitting that you fucked up your dream using your own primo decision-making skills. Anyway, by the end of my two bottle session I’d managed to uneasily identify the forks that took me “elsewhere,” and sadly they seem to have two common denominators: impulsivity… and me.

SHINY OBJECT!!!

Here’s the rub. At the time, I’m sure every decision seemed like a perfectly sensible one. After all, who makes life-altering proclamations and path deviations just all willy-nilly?

*slowly raises hand*

I suspect this is how I ended up with a house in the middle of nowhere that will never be out of the remodeling stage, and four dogs.

Admittedly, I should probably be grateful things didn’t go completely sideways, given the circumstances. Though it is, by no stretch of anyone’s imagination, the career I dreamed of, at least I can go to work in jeans without combing my hair to have Nerf gun fights, neurotically IM crazy crap with C-Rich, and collect a paycheck enough to sustain my chronic need for mani/pedis and even more shoes.

Still… if I should find a Genie in a bottle…

Sunday, Bloody Sunday

I'm a Big City Girl.

A Concrete Jungle Cat.

I actually appreciated living next door to someone for a year, three years, five years, and never knowing the their name, and vice versa. I prefer not to be noticed unless I decide to be. I value my privacy and prefer to completely ignore people in order to preserve theirs. It’s not a bad attitude – I consider it a public service. Do unto others and all that…

Fast forward to present day, living in a place where everyone knows your name...

When I first moved here, I had no intention of staying more than 12 months – tops. It was just a pit stop I had to make en route to getting where I was going. With that in mind I remember thinking, “how bad could it be, really?” I figured if I had to be here, I’d let myself get caught up in the Americana of it all.

The small town I landed in is the kind of Mayberry where you throw your car keys on your dashboard because you never lock the door to your house. A place where they have a parade for any old reason and the entire town shows up to watch the mediocre marching band play their way down Main Street while majorettes chase their dropped batons; where the street is lined with little – albeit expensive – shops, and you can’t get a traffic ticket without your neighbor popping over the hedges to comment on it within moments… assuming you have a neighbor.

I was charmed!

For a while.

I soon realized that supermarket shopping here is a full make-up undertaking because there are a significant number of residents, like myself, whose sole Sunday goal is to get in and out before church adjourns and the masses flood in with their hungry, miserable children. These are my people. We stop to chat, inquire about each other’s lives, and promise we’ll get together soon because that’s the polite thing to say. It’s not untrue – but it is somewhat unlikely. Truth is, we’re on a mission: get this chore checked off the list and resume our day our way.

Sunday, 9:38 a.m.

I slide into the first parking space I see and barrel into the market. It’s getting late, I have a long list, and soon the little monsters I want to stuff into a freezer will be exiting early mass and arrive to disrupt my inner peace.

Shit! I forgot my eco-responsible shopping sacks. Do I go back? I should. I hate hauling in those plastic bags, and it’s just 6 minutes each way….

No. Too much room for error and personal contact if I’m any later getting through the aisles ahead. Freeing a basket from the stall, I stop just inside the sliding door to root around my pocketbook for my list and coupons. Aaaaaaand of course there’s some woman rubbing antibacterial wipes over her handle struggling with her kid because the stupid seat is broken. *heavy sigh*

“Excuse me. Hi. Here. Take mine.” We swap baskets and I head for dairy (no, I don’t know why I always start there) certain that The Universe is going to let me off the hook for any further interaction, given my good deed.

Moments later I’m standing in front of 30 feet worth of yogurt, 20 of which is now the Greek variety which I hate, looking for vanilla. Plain vanilla. Looking turns into searching. Searching turns into sighing. In a voice lowered enough that I hope it won’t be heard by anyone but my target, thus tipping off some acquaintance that I’m there, I ask the kid stocking the yogurt, “Excuse me. Are there any small containers of just regular full fat yogurt to be had?”

I do not exaggerate when I say that heads of shoppers within earshot whipped around so fast, I actually felt the loose tendrils from my hastily executed ponytail lift off the back of my neck. And then...

The kid laughed.

Out loud.

I blinked.

I blinked again.

“I.. uh… there’s…”

I blinked at him once more knowing that my placidly inquisitive fake smile had gone from “quick question” to sarcastic “oh, it's like that?”

“YOPLAIT!” he nearly shouted.  “Up there.”

I looked to the top shelf where he pointed, looked down at my Chuck T’s, then looked back at him, eyebrows raised. As he scrambled to retrieve the 4 ounce containers he asked, “how many do you want?”

“All of them. They’re for my dogs.”

Somewhere behind me a disparaging snort and crass remark was issued in my direction. I had to wonder what he/she/it would think about the fact that my next stop was for an over-priced organic chicken that would soon become dog food. I would’ve asked, but I wasn’t trying to make new friends this morning.

Instead, I walked away smiling. Today the supermarket felt a little bit like home.