POV

Today is April 18th and yesterday was a horrible day. 

It started at the gas station where you stopped for breakfast. You picked out some drinks and snacks, enough to keep you full and happy for the rest of the week. You paid the cashier then walked back out to the parking lot. As you walk toward your car, a big pickup truck is parking next to you. He’s parked far over the line and mere inches are left between his passenger door and the driver’s side door of your car. You squeeze to get into your car, pressing and pulling yourself every which way until you finally slide into your seat. You see the guy walk into the gas station; he’s short and bald, a combination the oversized pickup truck is clearly making up for. 

You go to work and the day starts fine, a little rushed, but nothing you haven’t handled before. Work isn’t where you want to be, but it never is. You haven’t liked your job for 2 years now and it feels like everyday it gets worse. It got worse. Despite the fact that the customers have all been nice all day and an extra person came to help out at the branch, the bank does not run smoothly. It never does. You end up asking multiple people in positions higher than you a question and they all give you different answers. You’re frustrated as you call the customer to explain and hope they don’t answer so you don’t have to get yelled at over the phone. It goes to voicemail, you hope they don’t call back. 

Work ends, thank god. Your mom calls while you’re still at work and you choose not to call her back on the way home. You’re already on the verge of tears and you’re not in the mood to exchange pleasantries. 

You cry on the way home listening to Apple Pie and Just For Fun, two of your most rotated songs right now. You manage to stop crying and remind yourself that you’ll be home soon with the one person who always makes you feel better and your dogs who are always so excited to see you. 

You change your clothes when you get home and you walk around the yard with your husband. You start to plan out the garden box you’re going to build for your tomato plants. You measure and talk about digging. It won’t be a cheap project, but it will be one that makes you feel good. You plan to buy a watering can; the planning reminds you of something you always wanted to do but never got the chance. You remember planting flowers with your Nanny as a child and how much you loved spending time in the dirty earth. You think planting the tomatoes will water a part of your soul that’s been in drought for a long time. 

Your husband says he needs to start dinner, so you follow him into the kitchen and help where you can. He’s making a recipe you haven’t had in a long time and you feel inept. You say something wrong and he doubles down on it, something he does all in good fun, but it’s not fun for you today. You tell him he’s being mean and you see the moment he realizes you’re about to come unglued. You start crying and you try to hide it by getting the milk out of the fridge and the flour out of the pantry, but ultimately you find yourself weeping in his arms, telling him you’ve had a hard day. He holds you as long as you need it and you need it for a while. He gets back to cooking and asks you to put on some music; he knows you love to dance and sing while he cooks, but you’re not much in the mood. You put on the Bobbie Gentry record, one of your favorites, and start making the gravy for the potatoes and chicken fried steak. 

The food is so good you forget to watch the show your husband put on. You don’t miss much, the episode is half filler then leads into a new arc to round out the season. The next episode will be good and intense, but you decide not to watch it. Your husband downloaded a new game he wants to show you. It’s a game where you catch fish and make sushi. You watch him dive after fish and treasure, then run the best sushi restaurant on the beach. All the while, you’re trying to defend yourself from Gert, the puppy whose energy skyrockets in the evenings. She won’t stop biting you. You tell her no, she needs to learn no, but she hasn’t quite learned it yet. When it gets to be too much, you tell her to go outside. In your haste to meet her at the door, you stub your three small toes against the coffee table. You’ve had enough, for you the day is over. You let Gert outside then you immediately go to the shower. 

In the shower you cry and wonder why it’s always like this. Why do you always feel like the ship is sinking? You wonder if this is all life has for you, brief glimpses at happiness and then deep, dark sadness. You wonder how much longer you can do it before it all becomes too much.

Then you ask yourself the question that arrives in your mind right when you need it: so what now? What are you going to do about it? You can give up for the night, finish your shower then crawl in bed early with a new spooky ghost video, but then what about tomorrow? 

You wash your face; it’s part of your shower routine, but it always feels even better after a good cry. You get out of the shower and finish out your night. Gert comes up to you and gives you apology kisses. You have another Oreo before you brush your teeth just because you can.  You plan to get up and do it all again, because as hard as things get, you have to keep yourself going. You remind yourself that despite how you feel, you’re really lucky to be living your life.

Today is April 18th and you still feel sad, but you try to remind yourself that you’re going to have a good day. Yesterday was a bad day, but today won’t be. You have a plan to turn it all around.

Gert makes me smile :)

This month I’m grateful for the birds. I love sitting outside and listening to them sing. It fills up the silence and reminds me that we are never completely alone, even when it feels like we are. I’m also grateful for friends, old and new, who show me love and are willing to have tough conversations with me. I’m grateful for life, even when I feel like I’m struggling through it.