I love you too?

The following is an excerpt of a conversation my mother and I had in the car tonight:

Mom (while driving down long, steep hill by our house): "This would be a really great hill to sled down."

Me: "We should do that this winter. Just the two of us, and whatever traffic happens to be over here."

Mom: "We can use greased cookie sheets!"

Me: "Or mattresses, like we did in the dorms."

Mom: "Or I could just pull you behind the car on a ladder!"

Me: "Um, why on a ladder?"

Mom: Silence, sideways look.

Has anyone EVER used a ladder to sled? A ladder being pulled behind the car, for that matter? Aren't these the things moms are supposed to be warning you AGAINST?

Random childhood memory: Unbeknownst to our parents, my brother and I used to pull a mattress off the bed that was in the basement spare room, place it at the bottom of the stairs, and then jump down from the top. The idea was that a. our fall would be cushioned by the mattress and b. because we were small and invincible, we would not crack our heads on the wall above the staircase during the leap. Somewhat miraculously, both of these things came to pass.

The Grocery Getter

Being the proud owner of a brand-new blog, I've noticed that I am developing a tendency to narrate everything. Really. Almost everything I do now is accompanied by a voice in my head trying to figure out how to phrase such-and-such an experience, just in case I want to write about it later.

Hence this post on one of the most mundane of all mundane activities - going to the grocery store.

I noticed today while at my local (Wal-Mart Neighborhood) market that grocery shopping seems to bring out my somewhat obsessive traits and behaviors. Normal people throw a list together, go to the store, buy groceries, and leave.

Not I.

No thrown-together lists for me, no sirree. My list is alphabetized. And not just alphabetized - it's alphabetized based on the section of the store where the items on said list are found. For example, at the Market, lunchmeat, fruit, cheese, and salad are all in the same section. So, the list reads: bananas, salad, sharp cheddar, turkey. Frozen peas, tilapia, shrimp, ice cream - all in the freezer section, hence: frozen peas, ice cream, tilapia, shrimp.

That could be considered almost normal, until I realized that I mentally debate my choices... with myself...in conversation form:

"Do I really want those bananas?"
"Yes. You like green bananas."
"But am I going to be able to eat 5 bananas before they get too yellow?"
"Well, probably not. But you could just get three and be fine."
"But I always feel bad separating the bananas. They grew up together. They traveled long distances over land and sea to get to this very market."
"Just buy 3 bananas."
"OK...I'm so sorry, bananas!"

Roughly the same thing happens in the cereal aisle, but it's usually a debate concerning fiber, sugar content, and whether I am realistically going to eat something with the texture of cardboard and/or small chunks of gravel. (Yes, GrapeNuts, I am talking about you.)

I carry the obsessive behavior into the checkout lane, where I. Must. Self. Check. Why, you ask? Because I bag my groceries much the same way I buy them - juice and milk go together, because they sit on the same shelf in the refrigerator. Ice cream and frozen peas get the same bag, because they're going to the same place also and I want them to have time to get to know each other before they're forced to huddle together in the arctic environment otherwise known as the freezer.

I am, truly, somewhat strange.

Solo

Solo - Not many words match their definitions like that one does. If you say it slowly enough - it can go from "solo" to "so low" and become the first part of "so lonely." In one sense, though, I wonder if I was more lonely in a "relationship" than I will be out of one.

I have to think that - in fact, I know that - it is possible to just "click" with someone, and knowing that made me less and less happy to continue to settle.

Relationships are hard because people are naturally prone to care about the opinions of others - and so many of those are conflict with what we may want to believe:

"You should know better."

"The soul wanders in the dark, until it finds love. And so where love goes, there we find our soul."

"I'm just cynical after all these years."

"It always happens?"

"You're not always going to love someone."

"It always happens - if we're lucky. And if we let ourselves be blind."

We try to date the people our friends think we should, or the one our mom sets us up with, or the person who's been a friend for years (but never really anything more) just because we feel pressure from Everyone Whose Opinions Matter - meanwhile, we completely ignore our hearts and listen to the "voice of reason" without realizing that sometimes it's OK for love to be insane and distorted - that it can't be vital if it operates within the normal threshold of day-to-day existence.

After two emotional hours on the phone today, two things happened. One, my phone shorted out because I'd been crying into it, and kept opening up strange screens seemingly with a mind of its own.

Two, I realized how liberating it is to know what I need, and also to know when that's not there and when it's time to let go.

I feel emotionally drained, but peaceful. I can't help thinking that this End is somehow the beginning of Something Important.