It HAS to get better
I had an amazing meal planned for V-day last night. I had stocked up on anything and everything I might need from the grocery store, had all of my dippers sliced and ready in the cutest green polka dot bowls, and had the first glasses of wine poured. I pulled out our Cuisinart fondue pot (my favorite of all our wedding gifts), chose the pink and red skewers as they seemed most appropriate, and started to set up for course #1.
Surprisingly, the plug for the fondue pot was not stored inside of it as I usually keep it. No big deal, so I began scouring each drawer in our kitchen sure it would only take a few seconds to find. A few minutes later I moved on to the cabinets, then the storage cabinet above the refrigerator, then back to the drawers, checked the inside of the fondue pot again, and began to feel myself get a little bit frustrated.
Me: “hey baby, do you have any idea where the plug for the fondue pot is? I can’t find it anywhere.”
Him: “It’s in the drawer next to the pantry. Just saw it there the other day.”
Me: “no, that’s the plug for the skillet. This plug looks the same but is a different brand.”
Him: “no, that can’t be the plug for the skillet. I threw that away a long time ago when we figured out it didn’t work.”
That’s when it hit me. A few months ago I was whipping up a batch of pancakes for a Sunday brunch, but I couldn’t get the skillet to heat up. I messed with the plug over and over again trying to figure it out, until finally it began to spark and become a fire hazard. (At some point Nick took it upon himself to throw the plug away as I found a different option for cooking my pancakes.)
Kind of a funny story. But it gets better- I was reorganizing the cabinets this weekend, and came across the non-working (or so I thought) skillet, and within an hour had loaded it up with some other old appliances and driven it to Goodwill. So there I sat… a beautiful fondue pot with no source of electricity, and a Presto plug for a skillet I no longer owned.
My immediate reaction should have been to laugh (how stupid was I to not realize I was trying to plug the wrong cord into our skillet months ago?), but instead I began to cry. And then I began to sob.
At first I’m sure Nick thought I was losing my mind, or far more in love with the fondue pot and skillet than he ever realized. But it wasn’t about the fondue pot, or a ruined V-day meal plan… it was about the big picture. It was the feeling that no matter what I try to do, nothing ever works out. Big or small, I always feel the world is against me. We are good people; we work hard, we live moral and ethical lives, we try to always make the right decisions, we are compassionate and selfless people, but the world is always against us. The National Guard continues to shut every door possible in the husband’s face, we can barely survive to pay our bills each month with nothing left over, we’ve been smacked in the face by infertility and the harsh reality we may never be parents, and I can’t even enjoy a fancy at-home dinner with my husband on Valentine’s Day.
I know this seems like a pity party, and I guess it is for the most part, but sometimes I’m tired of walking through life with a smile on my face and appreciating what I do have. Because sometimes I just don’t feel like it’s very much. I know that I only I can make myself happy and I must accept the cards we’ve been dealt, but for 20 minutes last night I didn’t. I felt sorry for myself and cried on Nick’s shoulder… and you know what? It felt good.
After my sob fest we made our own little double boiler on the stove, pulled up a few stools, and enjoyed our first course (almost) the way I planned. It turned out to be a wonderful night with my husband, just the two of us at home, and that’s all that really mattered. Now the fondue pot incident is just a good story.
At the same time, something’s got to give. Whether we actually catch a break in life, or make some drastic changes and hope for the best, something has to change. It HAS to get better.
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