October 12, 2009
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Hand In My Pocket
Right now I’m sitting on my floor in my new apartment (because I have no furniture) and shoveling in boxed macaroni and cheese. (Because I am starving and it was only .57 cents at the grocery store on the way home and I am broke.) As I scarf I’m watching the NBC Nightly News. Wouldn’t you know the exact moment I started scarfing, the journalist on a segment about the 2.5 million American grandparents raising their grandkids holds up a box of the stuff I just made. While talking to a volunteer from a food bank that donates to these grandparents, he holds up the box and says; “What’s in this box will be somebody’s dinner tonight.”
Yes sir, it sure will. Mine’s not from a food bank, but it serves as a belly filling dinner when it needs to and you have no money. I just stopped for a minute to look around my new home. I then looked down at my sad and unhealthy mac n’ cheese boxed din din (that lets face it- really does taste delicious on occasion) and had to chuckle. I then said aloud to myself; “Well- I’m broke but I’m happy!” It reminds me of this portion of an Alanis Morissette song:
I’m broke but I’m happy
I’m poor but I’m kind
I’m short but healthy, yeah
I’m high but I’m grounded
I’m sane but I’m overwhelmed
I’m lost but I’m hopeful baby
That’s me. Totally and completely me.
It’s a rainy night and pretty cold out and here I sit finally after a very long time, in my very own home again- no roommates, no sharing, no one to answer to, just in peace and quiet with a numb butt from my hardwood floor- and I love every minute of it. Peace and quiet on a floor, with very scarce belongings, eating cheap food after a year like you read about (yes- one of those overwhelming ones) and it feels just perfect to me.
I’ll get all that fancy nice furniture I had once before and probably lose it all again too because that’s what happens in life. I’ll likely at some point be sitting back on a floor somewhere eating mac n’ cheese out of a box, simultaneously being a bit peeved, wondering to myself how the hell I got “there” on a rainy and cold night and loving every minute of it too.
I’m not afraid anymore to admit I’ve felt lost a lot of the time but I’m always hopeful baby.
Betsy
October 25, 2009 at 1:45 amLove this post, especially becasue I have had some recent people (ok, person) in my life that actually could never believe in a lifetime that someone could possibly be happy just all by herself and without a lot of ‘things’. I am so with ya on this one, Diane!