Today I flipped off a display of Little Debbie Christmas tree cakes.

In the grocery store.

Like a perfectly reasonable, functioning adult.

And before you assume it was because Christmas cakes are already out and we haven’t even made it through Halloween, no. Although, seriously, Debs. Can we let the pumpkins have their moment?

Those cakes reminded me of someone I used to buy them for. As soon as they came out, I’d grab a box or two because I knew she loved them.

A little “I saw these and thought of you.”

That person has since been very nasty to me.

So today, apparently, Little Debbie had to answer for it.

Sorry, girl. Wrong place, wrong time.

Normally, I would have walked right past them. Maybe had a passing thought. Kept shopping.

Today? Seasonal snack cakes received an obscene gesture.

That’s about where I am.

I’m crying in my car. Taking the long way home. Calling my bestie to talk me off the ledge. Keeping myself busy because if I stop doing things, I have to think about things, and I’m not particularly enjoying the things available to think about right now.

This morning I rolled out of bed and went to the nail salon in the pants I slept in. I did change my shirt, put on a bra, and apply deodorant.

Let’s acknowledge the effort.

Then I went to the grocery store, where a child was screaming with the full power (and lungs) of a banshee.

Every scream hurt my ears. Hurt my head. I have no idea what that child needed, but I desperately needed to be somewhere else.

I threw my cabbage in the bag like a live grenade and evacuated produce.

If there had been a place to dive for cover, I would have taken it. Woman down behind the romaine! Send coffee. Or wine. Or both. STAT!

Then I accidentally got into Rosa’s checkout line.

Poor Rosa only wants to help me save money with coupons. She also likes to talk.

A lot.

Today, I was staring at my phone, pretending to be very busy so I wouldn’t have to participate. For the love of all that is holy, just please let me pay full price for my groceries and get the heck out of here!

The banshee wasn’t to blame (little prayer for his/her poor Mom, though – good luck and Godspeed). Rosa is not to blame either. Little Debbie surely isn’t to blame. Nobody is.

From the outside, I’m sure I looked a little unhinged.

From the inside, I’m trying to buy groceries while carrying yesterday’s news about my husband.

There isn’t a separate checkout line for that.

You still need food. The dogs still need to be fed. Life keeps asking ordinary things of you when you barely know what to do with this enormous thing.

And sometimes, in the middle of all that, you flip off a snack cake.

But you know what?

I don’t want to give the person those cakes reminded me of the rest of this post.

She is one person.

One person among so many people in our lives who love us and keep finding ways to remind us.

The check-ins. The funny stories. The texts that make me snort laugh when I didn’t think I had a laugh in me. The gifts. The supper someone else handles so I don’t have to figure out one more thing. The piles of never-ending laundry that my poor mother has been doing to keep her own self occupied. 

The people who keep me occupied. Who listen. Who let me be scared, angry, grateful, exhausted, or all four in the same conversation.

Who don’t judge me. Even when I’m wearing yesterday’s pants and apparently have a personal grievance with Little Debbie.

I keep getting reminded, daily, of the generosity of our friends and family. And I want to make room for that here, too.

I wish more than anything that Mike wasn’t facing this. No amount of gratitude changes how badly I want that.

But I am grateful we have people who love us through it.

And then there’s Mike himself.

I know how I’m doing. I’m over here hiding and crying in parking lots and fleeing the produce section like a crazy rabid chipmunk. So I asked him how he was doing with the news.

Without skipping a beat, he said:

“Nothing to do but to do it.”

Well. All right then.

I think that came from a story my uncle told us once. He was about to head out on a trail, somewhere in California, I think. Sorry, Unc Jim, if you’re reading this and I get it wrong. He saw a guy pause at another trailhead, put his hands together, and say:

“Welp, nothing to do but to do it!”

And off he went.

Apparently, that stuck with Mike.

Our motto through all of this has been “one day at a time, moment by moment, day by day.”

I still need that one. Some moments are about as much as I can manage.

But now Mike has supplied an addition.

“Nothing to do but to do it.”

I don’t know yet exactly what the next stretch looks like. I wish we didn’t have to walk it at all. And I suspect I’ll need more coffee, more snort-laugh texts, and a few more private cries in the car along the way.

But we have each other. We have people who keep showing up for us.

So, one day at a time, moment by moment, day by day.

Nothing to do but to do it.

Little Debbie, please accept my apology.

You were an innocent snack cake caught in a very complicated day.

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