What Made me Cry Again Today
I’ve never been one to do much crying, because I was taught to suppress anything but being sweet. Showing emotions was punished, often severely, and so when I cry I still feel ashamed like I am doing something wrong. Whenever I cry, my own tears burn up my face so bad and causes me to sometimes have a raised, white bump on my face if I’ve cried too much.
So in other words, crying hurts physically and it still makes me feel guilty. I often gaslight myself about how this is just a little thing, I should not cry about it. I’ve been feeling a little down the past week or so, for multiple reasons, and so I suppose it’s not surprising that I should cry today.
I was standing in the freezer section of the Dollar General. I hate the Dollar General, but you know, it’s by my house and I was there for one thing. Walmart is ten minutes away so for this, the Dollar General was where I went.
I stood there probably for a good ten to fifteen minutes trying to decide. I haven’t eaten well this week because it’s the end of the month and my kids need the food. I chose a bowl that had macaroni and cheese with pepperoni, it was about four dollars.
Now, I know it’s probably not great to spend four dollars on the thing, but I was excited because it was something to eat, and I had about ten dollars left on my EBT card. It was going to be a treat and I could already taste the cheesy goodness.
I put it in the yellow store basket that was resting on my walker, smiled, and walked up to check out. I was going to have something nice today. My kids are visiting their father and I was going to be home alone.
When I got to the register, I was told that Mississippi’s EBT system was down. I sighed, went and put the food back so that the cashier wouldn’t have to, and walked out of the Dollar General knowing that I still had no value to society.
