How Can That Be, Phil?!?

Yesterday, Friday, I started this off three different times, all on the theme of How I Can Be In Love With My Life Despite Some Big Hurdles, but it was too depressing. None of the three attempts gained traction. Instead, they slipped backward, into the bog and I don't want to be in the bog. It's too... boggy. And it's depressing, so I stopped, deciding to wait until today.

Trust me, though, I am in love with my life despite those hurdles.

Some of you know some of it. Others know much of it. One or two know pretty much most of it but no one but me knows all of it. And that's okay. It's how it should be - a private corner in my life just as everyone else has.

Then I thought about "cheating" and dropping in one of the flash pieces I've written, but that didn't seem right, so I started this on Friday and I'll finish it on Saturday. Instead of my occasional two-fer-one, it'll be a one-fer-two, and that's okay, too. It'll save us both a little time.

Now it's Saturday. In the afternoon, a bit after twelve o'clock. This wasn't a morning to love, either.

I was out the door at eight-thirty. It was raining. I had to go buy gas and, because my car is old, sometimes it doesn't like being 'fed'. Sometimes, if I let it get just a little too low, I'll fill it up, start it up, move three or four feet and it will stall.

I suspect that it's either because of a dirty fuel filter (which I haven't the money to spend replacing) or because there's an air-gap in the line. No matter. Then I have to put the car in neutral (it's an automatic transmission with power steering), get out, and push. And it's a big car, a full-size station wagon, so it's heavy. And then I get to try to steer it while pushing without power steering. It's hard. But I push it out of the way so I'm not blocking other people and then I wait. After a minute or two, if I try again, it will restart and actually run and I can drive it.

Joy of joys! It didn't stall! I was able to get it to run and drive it away.

Then I went and got the oil and power steering fluid changed.

Then I went to PetSmart and bought cat food for the next few weeks.

Then - best of all! I got to go clothes shopping.

Honest to God, I would rather have dental work without Novocain than go clothes shopping. I would rather have my eyes put out. Anything rather than shop for clothes.

After two stores and about eight trips back and forth between the racks and the dressing room I finally settled... on the first pairs of pants I tried on. An hour of my life spent in futility. I'd suck as a hunter because, for me, there is no thrill of the chase. There is no excitement of catching my prey. If it wouldn't bring tears to the eyes of adults and scare the children, I would prefer to go around stark naked or in my jammies. But, I found what I was looking for and paid for it - a shocking amount.

Then, I got to come back to the hometown and go back to Costco so I could buy the refrigerated and frozen stuff I needed. Then I got to stop at the other grocery store for the yogurt and head of garlic.

Three hours after leaving I got home and walked into... an argument. The same argument I knew I was going to get because it's the same argument I always get: "why'd you spend so much?"

This is one of the hurdles in the bog that's so depressing. Mostly I overlook and avoid this hurdle. Over the years, I've learned well how to avoid it but, unfortunately, I sometimes can't miss. On days like today, everything was wrong with what I did.

We talked about the oil and power steering fluid change before I left. It was still ammunition for this afternoon. "Why'd it cost so much?" To which I could respond, "How the hell do I know? It's what they charge!" or "I don't set the pricing, sorry." Neither of which would help, so I shrug and keep my mouth shut.

We talked about the pants that I needed two nights ago. On this, I don't know whether to laugh or smile or blush, but when I took one of the pairs of pants I wear to work out of the dryer the other night, I was horrified to see that the seat was gone. It was two holes, one on either side of the mid-seam.

Now I'm going to sit here and convince myself that those two holes were where my lower sittin' bones wore through and when I was standing and walking around work those two holes were not visible. Please don't tell me otherwise or I might just die of embarrassment. But they were one very well worn pair of pants.

So, I showed those Holy Sunday Britches to hubby and said, "I have to buy some clothes." He fussed and whined and complained but couldn't very well say, "No" given the evidence.

Today I bought two pair of pants. And I heard about that, too. Even though these are pants that are going to make the other pants I have last longer through not being worn constantly, and even though these are pants I will wear to work, and even though I now have five pairs of pants for work instead of four, he complained.

And I bought food for my lunches, and he complained.

I bought food for my breakfasts and, you got it, he complained.

So I got to go out and do all those things, then do something I hate, and then I got to come home and listen to an hour of whining.

BUT! Out of the fifteen waking hours today, I spent about one in the misery of shopping and about one in the misery of listening to hubby. Tomorrow I won't have to do those things, and tomorrow I don't have to go out and shop. Tomorrow, if I play it right, I can be up, downstairs, cooking and out of the kitchen before he even gets up, then I won't have to listen to him complain about my being in the way.

This is usual. This is my life and, despite this, I do love it because aside from the gnat buzzing in my ear there is so much else to enjoy and take pleasure in. Even sitting alone in my car while others change my oil and I don't have the gnat. Walking through Costco, picking and choosing things that I will make into something I will like without the gnat is pleasurable. It is the choice I make, to ignore the gnat, the bad and the ugly, and look for the quiet times, like now and like the driving around time this morning, alone, listening to the radio with no one complaining.

My future, when the gnat is gone for good and all, is something to which I look forward, and I will get there and then my life will be just about perfect. In the meantime it is those small moments, those little things and short times alone that allow me to say: Yes, I really do love my life.

I hope you love yours, too.

Best~
Philippa

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