The Dark

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Okay, I'm keepin' it real.

I had a pretty dark moment last week. It was raining. Joey was with grandma so I had the afternoon off. I went to the movies ("It's Complicated" -funny, thumbs up). After, I was driving in the rain to go to Sprouts, my favorite produce store. As I was driving, I had this thought. It came to me like a poem, so I will write it as such here, although it wasn't a distant, poetic sentiment; it was intensely real and I felt it hard to the core.

Don't believe in God
Don't believe in love
Don't believe in the kindness of strangers
If comforting arms surrounded me
I would not feel them
I would just disappear
Those things are much too far away from where I am
I don't live there anymore

Okay, so it's a bit derivative lyrically, but there it is. I felt overcome with sadness and loneliness. It was awful. I went to Sprouts and bought a few veggies but my heart wasn't in it. I quit smoking a year ago, and have been successful except for the occasional cheat, like at Indian casinos or on vacation. Anyway, I was desperate for a cigarette because I knew it would make me feel better. There weren't any smokers hanging around Sprouts - much too healthful of a place, damn it - so I drove over to the Target across the street & bummed a smoke off an older lady sitting under the overhang outside the store. Then I drove to the far side of the parking lot, got out of the car (so as not to stink it up) and stood in the now sprinkly rain smoking that cigarette. And you know what? Damn, it was good. I did feel better. I stopped crying and that desperate feeling left me. Then I got back in the car, cleaned my hands on a wet wipe and drove home.