EVERYTHING IS AN EVENT: Grocery Shopping

Grocery shopping: IS STILL A HUGE EVENT FOR ME!

I’m exhausted…from grocery shopping. I still haven’t even put away the groceries yet because I need to sit, rest my body, and apparently rant. So that’s where this Blog comes in.

Multiple sclerosis and lupus are hard. They’re especially hard right now in July. Sure it’s a cooler day in Los Angeles than it’s been in the past week BUT it’s still too warm for my MS today and the sun is crazy intense and my lupus is yelling at me right now. What’s my biggest symptom right now? Fatigue. Don’t have much energy left. I’m hoping it rebuilds again because otherwise the groceries will be sitting on the counters and the floor in their bags and we’ll be eating and taking things in and out of the bags as needed. What about the frozen stuff? Well, there’s no ice cream in there so we’re safe that way. HOWEVER, even if there was, I had better sit down RIGHT NOW or MY BODY WILL SIT DOWN FOR ME AND IT’S NOT GONNA BE PRETTY…

I find myself having fantasies of deciding spur of the moment to go to the grocery store and picking up some groceries and you know, hopping in the car, and driving over to the store, and going in and getting what I need and leaving and being able to just whip the groceries into the fridge and the cupboards and then be able to go on with my life and the rest of my TO DO list. Oh and of course I’m singing and dancing up and down the aisles and just having a merry old time!

It doesn’t happen that way. NOPE. I have to plan it as an EVENT. Yes, an event. You know those big and important things we plan ahead of time and do special? That’s GROCERY SHOPPING for me. If I plan it for a specific day I sure hope I feel up to it. It takes a lot of energy and exercise to do such a thing. If I don’t feel up to it I have to wait till another day. OK. I’ve done that a lot lately. It sort of goes with the territory. If I have something else planned for that day I probably can’t go on that day either. It really has to be its own thing. And if we run out of stuff to eat, well then we run out of stuff to eat. It’s gonna have to be an “oh well”.

And so I at least did THE shopping today. I pulled myself together after already having taken a walk (need to walk to keep up with exercise and to hopefully keep my legs moving) and a shower (another big event), and then I had to put on sunscreen, pulled on sun protective clothing (yes even to go to the grocery store) and that included long sleeves (tricky during the summer because then my MS gets unhappy) to help block more of the sun, put on a hat (again–sun protection), made sure I took all my medication and had something to eat, made my way through the warm apartment building to the hot car and put on the AC, drove to the store and used my energy to drive and dealt with other people in other cars on the road, parked (hoping there was a handicapped spot–yes I use a placard because I need to save my energy as much as possible OH and hopefully there’s a spot available–can deal not using it but helps immensely to use these spots), got a basket, walked in the store, tried to keep up with a list I had written to get the stuff, used my body to get things off shelves and put them in the basket, back tracked through the store because I’d forgotten things, had to stand and walk the whole time while pushing and pulling the basket, dealt with other people in the store, stood in line at the check out, put the stuff from my basket on the belt thingie, talked to the cashier and then paid, pushed the basket to my car, unloaded the bags of groceries out of the basket, put them in the hot car, drove to the apartment, parked, started unloading the groceries bag by bag, took quite a few trips back and forth, unloaded the bags in the apartment, still need to unload the groceries, put them in their places, and then go on with the rest of my day and my life. Well I’m pretty worn out just from writing this.

Now don’t get me wrong. I know this is something we all need to do and have done before. I just can’t believe how much I ever took for granted even when grocery shopping BEFORE MS and lupus. It’s crazy. This was just what I did. I didn’t even think much about it. But after writing that last paragraph and pretty much going through the whole process step by step it’s CRAZY the amount of work it is to shop for groceries. I’m truly GRATEFUL for all that I can still do in regards to this. Quite often I need Corey’s help and there have been times he’s done the shopping on his own but he works so much and drives so far and I like to be able to do what I can to feel useful too.

BUT it’s a lot and I’m tired of it being A LOT. So I’m holding out HOPE that one day it won’t be as HARD to do something we all do to sustain our lives. There are so many things that feel like EVENTS to me. I just want them to be what they are. I don’t want to have to negotiate so much with my body because I already have 2 HUGE and INTRUDING diseases taking over my well-being: MS and lupus.

And THAT is my RANT about the EVENT that is grocery shopping.