Small Things

I’ve noticed that when things get difficult or stressful, you really start to appreciate the small things more. Things you might not have noticed before. For example, the move went really smoothly (a miracle in and of itself), and Special K and I have been at the house often since then to get things unpacked and organized. The only thing that I didn’t like about the area was that the two large grocery stores nearby were on the old and rundown side, with not much of a selection of things. As someone who likes to cook, that’s kind of frustrating. There’s also Whole Foods, but we can’t afford to do all our shopping there, it’s too expensive. (Although it’s certainly good for some things.) So last night we found a nice, shiny new Safeway, five minutes away from our house in the District, and it just made me so happy.

A grocery store.

For some perspective, although there are lots of wonderful things happening for us now (like the fact that we’re getting married in nine days!), the last couple of weeks/months have been so incredibly stressful in other ways. After putting a lot of money into it lately (money that I didn’t have, mind you), my car has decided to start making another scary and unidentified noise. I have had 10 years and 120,000 low-maintenance miles, but if it’s getting to the point where I’m putting my mechanic’s kids through college, I can’t keep that up. Special K got clobbered with a huge-mongous tax bill this year. There are serious family health problems to deal with, other financial stresses to deal with, and it just feels like a bunch of difficult things are happening all at once. This doesn’t make us unique, things like this, and far worse, happen to other people every day. But it still sucks when it’s happening to you.

As with all of these things, if I have a plan for how to manage it, I feel more calm. Like I’m doing something instead of sitting around and feeling sorry for myself. So we have a plan. I’m not saying it’s all going to be easy, and life will always be filled with rainbows and puppies, but we have a plan.

And a nice, shiny, new Safeway.