Grocery shopping is not what it used to be
I went grocery shopping!
I know it sounds like I'm joking but I'm not. I haven't been grocery shopping, like real come out with a cart full of food grocery shopping in a year and a half. For real. We were living with my in-laws for the last ten months and my mother in law bless her golden heart did all the grocery shopping. Before that I was in a food program for people "trying to get back on their feet" for lack of a better term. I got in it because my husband died. Before that I avoided grocery shopping as much as humanly possible. (more on that in a minute) before that (when Dan was alive) I went shopping every couple weeks at our local chain discount grocery store. A pain sure, but really no big deal, thats what everyone did, go to the store and buy groceries, like every other normal family.
After Dan died food just magically appeared in our fridge for a long time. When it started to fade I figured I should go grocery shopping. So here's a secret I never knew and if you had told me this in the before I probably wouldn't believe you. Grocery shopping when your grieving is a big giant panic attack waiting to happen. Trust me it is. Everything is wrong, you can't buy what you used to buy but you don't know what to buy instead. every other product reminds you "you cant buy mt dew, only dan drinks mt due and hes dead. But I could buy mushrooms dan hated mushrooms so I never bought them, now he's dead" Thousands upon thousands of products waiting for you to have to have this conversation with. You need to make a decision based on your husband being dead. Hundreds of decisions in about an hour.
Then you need to deal with people. There's a good chance you'll run into someone you know and they will want to know how your coping right there in the middle of the grocery store when your trying to decide weather you should buy mint ice cream or not (I like it, Dan didn't) It's not a good place for a conversation, I have always been an extrovert, I actually liked running into people I knew at the store, now I turned around and walked the other way hoping they didn't see me.
Then you need to consider your complete lack of memory on two fronts. One, you can't remember what you need even though you've written it down on a list and the list is in your hand. Two you can't remember where anything in the store is, even though you've gone to that exact store practically your whole life, you just don't remember things like that anymore.
It goes something like this: look at list, list says peanut butter, Ok peanut butter, lets get peanut butter, peanut butter, peanut butter, peanut butter. wheres the peanut butter, by the jelly, wheres the jelly? I thought it was over here but I can't find it, peanut butter where looking for peanut butter. look grahm crackers, remember how every Christmas we would make ginger bread houses out of Graham crackers. Dan your not going to make ginger bread houses with us ever again. Wait I wasn't looking for graham crackers, what was I looking for, jelly no we have jelly, man I'm exhausted, I can't do this anymore lets just go home. Then all of a sudden everything is overwhelming, you start to get hot, you feel claustrophobic even though you've never had that problem before and you just need to get out of there as fast as possible. You even consider just leaving your cart of groceries behind, you want to leave that bad. You stumble to the checkout line in a daze and wonder why the clerk is making chit chat with you when across your face in giant red letters it says your husbands dead and you don't want to make chit chat you just want to be at home in your bed. On a good day you do all this and make it home with your paid groceries (but no peanut butter) on a bad day you just leave the cart in the middle of the store and drive home in a daze hoping you don't crash, because your not really all there.
See doesn't that sound like fun. Ya it really wasn't. After a couple times of that I stopped grocery shopping there. Then I took to running to our local everything store almost every day. A gallon of milk. all I need is a gallon of milk (not two we don't drink that much now) just one gallon of milk. I can remember that, sort of. On a good day I might be able to remember a gallon of milk and a loaf of bread. The next day I go in for peanut butter. It wasn't the best plan in the world but it got me through. No more giant shopping trips.
Than like I said I haven't really had to go shopping for a year and a half. But now we are in our own house again, and were out of bananas and milk and cereal. Plus I should probably stock the cupboards and fridge some. I hear fresh fruit is good for you. We we moved in my mother in law (seriously bless her golden heart) stocked us with enough food to get us going, but shopping was inevitable. I didn't now what to do, the thought of the big discount grocery store terrified me (panic attacks are not fun and I didn't want to do that again), but it's been a year and a half, maybe I'm over them, maybe I will be okay, Maybe I should take that chance, maybe I shouldn't. I guess I could go shopping at our local everything store, but the people and the chaos that place is always chaos, I go there several times a week for little things as it is.
In the last two years there has been this new development in grocery shopping. Our local everything store lets you shop on line, then you go to the store, you park in a designated spot, and they bring the groceries out to you. No people no hassle, no getting lost, no not being able to find things, no panic attacks. Well that certainly sounded appealing but I was having a hard time justifying it, after all the local everything store is more expensive than the big discount grocery store, shouldn't I be saving money, shouldn't I be shopping frugally. Then my friend said something that made a lot of sense, she said "who gives a crap, you need to do whats best for you, and this is best for you right now" so I followed her advice, shopped on line, went and picked it up. I never had to get out of my car, I only had to talk to one person, I was gone twenty minutes total. No panic attacks, no fear of panic attacks. Best grocery shopping I've ever done.
I wrote a book about my grief, you can read it here: Carry on Castle
Brilliant!
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