I dislike grocery shopping. It is painful to be around so many people moving so slowly.
Tonight, the farmer's market (which usually has all we need) was closed and I needed lunch fixin's for morning. I cringed and did the dirty work of slogging up and down the big box aisles.
Grocery shopping is hard, but coming home and having to unload those groceries adds insult to injury.
Ironic enough, that's where the silver lining is -- when my kids were little, I trained them how to carry in the groceries, checking the car for all 14 (or however many) bags, checking to make sure nothing fell out in transit, closing and locking the car, wiping feet off at the door, carrying the bags into the kitchen. I also trained them to look inside the bags of groceries so that if they were overcome with an irrepressible desire to whack their brother with a bag, they would do it with a bag of bagels, not a bag of eggs, or worse, a bag of cans.
Last night as I came home from grocery shopping, I was excruciatingly tired. Beyond tired. In that land where you forget what it feels like to not be tired. Where every bone and muscle screams and the mind goes numb. The last eight days had drained me on every level. During those days I had looked evil in the face and stared it down. I had won, but it was shallow, too heavy a price.
As I pulled into our pathetic little strip of pavement that we call a driveway, I was so relieved to know that my sons, my wonderful children, would jump up and run out as soon as they heard my car pull in.
They would unload the groceries.
You have no idea what a relief that is.
