Thoughts

A note left on my last entry:"I’m not a fan of shopping, either. The first step, I think, is to figure out WHY you dread it so much..."

So, this got me thinking. And part of the problem is that I still carry the remains of a huge mountain of resentment which began in the years I was married. Both my now-ex and I worked full time. But I was a woman and was thus expected to add to that traditional "women’s housework." I want to be fair here so I have to say that this expectation came not only from my husband but from me too. So. I worked five days a week with hard-to-manage seventh graders–whom I loved teaching, BTW, but who by their very age were not easy to work with, and on the weekend, not only graded work and made tests, but also I bought groceries and cooked, cleaned and did laundry. And the years passed and I got more and more overwhelmed and more and more resentful and ANGRY! But I was not only a typical woman of my generation but also a typical English woman of my generation! {The "stiff upper lip of the English" attitude was alive and well back then.} And the only way I knew back then to deal with growing resentment was to keep silent with the occasion explosion which did nothing helpful to solve the problem.

So, time passed, I got some guts and a divorce and eventually it was just Jake and me in the house. {My two sons are 21 years apart and by that time the older one was married with sons of his own and his own life.} So, I still didn’t love grocery buying but it was a necessity and we had a routine. I had a truck by then and so once every ten days or so after school, Jake and I used to buy the groceries, load up the truck and head for home and start unloading. We both carried the first load in, then I stayed there and started putting away while Jake continued bring stuff in. When everything was in, if there still stuff to put away, Jake helped me to put away until everything was away. Basically, it was "No one sits down until everything is done." And although, I couldn’t say I loved grocery shopping, I had no resentment. Everything got done and was done by everyone.

Then, during the years I spent with Fred, we were both into "everyone  does his or her fair share" and I was fortunate in that he really enjoyed grocery shopping! So, most of the resentment slowly drained away. In the year before Fred’s death and the year and a half since his death, stress has done a number on my body, and I did then and do now find anything that requires me to walk even short distances very difficult to manage. I have got into the habit of putting off the buying until I have next to nothing in the house and thus making the physical part of the shopping more difficult than it need be.

I have been thinking about this and the only way I can deal with it at the moment is what I am doing. I put in an order online, Jake picks it up for me at a prearranged time after he leaves work and brings it into the house for me and I put it all away. Once I am over all these intestinal problems and the surgery I am hoping will help me, then my plan is to buy smaller amounts more often and to start thinking of shopping in a more positive way, for example, as something that makes me get out of the house… Well, all that is in the future and there will probably be a lot of improvising!

.An emotion is only an emotion.

It’s just a small part of your whole being.

You are much more than your emotion.

An emotion comes, stays for a while, and goes away, just like a storm.

If you’re aware of that, you won’t be afraid of your emotions.

~Thich Nhat Hanh

If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment. — Marcus Aurelius