Groceries ARE Gratifying

Sheltered. Or maybe pampered is a better word. Either way, I don't like both of those words but I suppose "pampered" could've been somewhat readily applied to me. The "me" before I left home for the first time at age 19 to delve into a delicious summer in romantic Paris, France. The "me" before bravely stepping forward into a semester in London, England.

I've always been fairly lucky in the way of chores, considering how I was never "forced" to do much, though I assure anyone in doubt that I knew HOW to do them. (And if I didn't, I was in complete confidence that I could quickly learn.) The only things I've really cooked were rice, instant ramen, and eggs. My parents were direly disdainful of my abilities, or lack thereof. They loudly proclaimed that there was no way I'd ever survive on my own. I heartily tuned them out and knew that I was long past time to be on my own and that what I didn't know, I could figure out.

In essence, this fostered also a feeling of enforced dependence. If you weren't about to force me to do something, I'm not going to do them, not once I know they'll be done anyway. Sorry, but that's the truth of the story. Thus, I never knew how it felt to have complete control over what I wanted to eat, and when I would have that set of clothes cleaned or bedsheets laundered.

That first time I got to go to a grocery store by myself and truly was about to buy food for real meals? Vast. Simply vast. It still is. I still feel like going to a grocery store is a fun adventure and not a dried-up chore to be crossed off the list. Ice cream. Salad. Wild Alaskan Cod. Whatever I feel like should be in my diet and on this week's recipe, I put on my list. And I go and get it. And even if it takes lugging heavy bags of canned chowder up a steep hill that I need to stop twice to catch my breath, it is worth every bead of sweat.

Groceries have never been so gratifying.