INNER REFLECTIONS

I'm in a wierd mood today- tired, groggy, a bit melancholy. Yesterday, as I was getting out of my car, the car door swung back on my face (yeah, go ahead and laugh it up) and smashed my glasses against my optical bone so hard my glasses are horribly bent and I awoke today with my eye puffy and pathetic looking. I'm upset about  not only my carelessness but also the $200 I will be set back to get new glasses. (they seem beyond repair) Out of dire necessity, I had to go grocery shopping at Trader Joe's this morning. Sometimes I hate going in there because as a former employee, I am forced to greet every single ex-co-worker there. It's awkward enough when I look good because sometimes I'm just not in the mood to talk, but when I look like a crack addict with crooked glasses it's almost unbearable. But I needed groceries and Tj's is the healthiest option for the least money. Before going I actually pondered whether or not to wear the mangled glasses or suffer wearing contacts despite my puffy eye. Contacts won. Already feeling like a deformed stroke victim and my self-esteem waning, I then found myself very angered by all the traffic as I headed from my home in the country to TJ's in the "city". The holidays are fast approaching and people are losing their ever-luvin' minds. I hate the holidays and all the greed & evil it stands for. It took me twice as long to find a parking space, I had to wait in line just to get a shopping cart, I had to fight my way down the ailes past rude people who park their cart RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE, I had to smile and make small-talk with all my former co-workers:
"Hey, Chelsea! What's been going on, girl? Um...what happened to your eye?"
I had to stand in a long line behind old ladies dressed in Santa sweaters with jingle bells, I had to chat with Mike, who checked me out and talked the whole time about getting some stupid "city-scape" tattoo down his leg and bugged me about why I quit. 

"Because it's hard to work late nights and every weekend when you have a family", stupid single Mike. After fighting the rediculous pre-holiday traffic home and unloading my groceries, I then was in a thankful and reflective mood. Here I was putting away my six bags of food: a whole chicken, spaghetti items for tonight's dinner, bread, milk, all the basics plus snacks that a family would need, and I thought of the Hatians who are dying by the hundreds daily of the Cholera outbreak. There is no TJ's for them. No cabinets full of goods, no stainless-steel fridge packed with meats, juice-boxes, or even fresh water. I reflected on the millions over the world, not just Haiti, with the same plight and said a prayer of thanks, like I often do as I put away my groceries. I am not so ignorant as to not realize that I am of a small group, even within the USA, that eats 3 meals a day. I also realize that, as the economy & national debt worsen, I may very well soon not be in that group anymore. Who am I to be ungrateful now? Then, as I drove to work ( I now do in-home care for a down-syndrome child) I passed a cemetery. It's the same small family plot that I have passed for months now but today I acually saw it, despite my puffy eye! There were the white head-stones of  long-dead neighbors, laid to rest surrounded in a square of Bradford Pear trees, leaves still bright red from the fall. I thought of their lives, their loved ones, and in my own small way, mourned them as I drove by. And this thus ended my inner reflections.