Rite Aid is no longer my oasis

I bought a new mop and a new broom today. I didn't really need them but i bought them anyway.
I stood in the laundry and cleaning aisle at the Rite Aid near Columbia and i practically forced myself to need something: to need that spray bottle for $2.49, those hanger clips, some rope, an over-the-door hook. Just buy something, anything, everything. As i stood there i gave myself a talking-to. This is about comfort and retail therapy, this is me needing to make a purchase and take home an object that will fill the hole in my life. This is my drink, my donut, my dope. I still spent almost $40.

I had actually planned on going to Rite Aid to buy the mop and possibly broom after deciding over the weekend that the ones i have could stand to be replaced. Not a dire necessity by any means but somehow i convinced myself that this was a prudent decision. Searching on the Home Depot and Bed Bath & Beyond websites all day at work didn't yield a satisfying result.
If i buy the perfect mop and broom, i thought, they'll clean the apartment and it'll shine and sparkle and the perfect furniture will magically appear and the walls will be the perfect color. It will be an apartment out one of those magazines with endless ads for kitchen faucets you never knew existed.

If i buy this, my life will be better. If i buy this body lotion for my mom, she'll get better . The fancy dish sponge, the organic garlic cloves, the eco-friendly floor cleaner, the bamboo eye mask. If only i can spend as much money as possible on a simple product then that will be the key to curing my mom. Make everything around her perfect and she'll get better. That was the thinking. The right type of pajamas were just as important as the smoothies and the medicine.

In my evolution or development stage or status of reincarnation I have not yet broken through to relinquishing the material. I've always and still do use buying stuff as an instant remedy. It's never anything fancy. Socks, pens, lightbulbs, books, Skittles, something. I gotta get to that next level of enlightenment.

Walking around the Rite Aid almost felt like an exercise in masochism. My mom and i had walked those aisles together innumerable times. I blasted the rock music in my earphones and plodded around like a zombie, repeating over and over in my head, "i want to die, i want to die, i want to die." I almost didn't notice that i was doing it.

7 months passed and i'm still shocked that every step on the subway stairway and every inch of concrete on Broadway make me long for my mother. The aisles of Rite Aid deafen me with the blare of her absence. They seem almost angry.

I know, i know, i know. I have to grieve and give myself time to do it. But i wait and wait for the shock to go away. One moment i'll miss her and understand that she got sick and died. The next i'll be asking myself, "wait, what? She's gone?"

It all sucks.
The grief, the trauma of emergency rooms and peeling skin and draining fluids, lonely bus rides home, crying on the subway. I wish i could get it all out of my system, i don't know how to do that. I try with this blog.
Most of all the regret. The regret. The memory of being a jerk: mean, lazy, insensitive. Selfish, so selfish.
Yes, sometimes i wonder if it was my fault. If i caused her enough disappointment and frustration that it could actually cause cancer. Maybe i need for it to be my fault. I'll have to ask Dr. Hirsh.

Today after work, Barb and Erika spoke about how great the trees outside the Time Warner Center look, completely strung with the brightest lights i've ever seen. Obnoxiously so, i thought. But then i wasn't feeling that holiday cheer. Those lights mean a whole year passed and this time it's horribly different. It's not that i won't enjoy the holiday season. I think i will. I was enjoying the Christmas music station i listened to at work today. There was a little bit of masochism at work again. Or maybe it's not that at all. Maybe i was just testing myself to see how far i could go with the pain, not for the pleasure of it, but to make myself better. It made me sad but the childhood joy was there, too.

I know winter is going to be painful and the holidays will suck but i KNOW that it won't be like that the whole time. There will be happy and funny and relaxed moments, too.
The sad doesn't take away from the happy. And the happy doesn't take away from the sad. So that's what Dr. Hirsh meant.

It's too late to mop now, but then again, that wasn't really the purpose of my purchase, was it?

I need to write about coats. This whole essay thing for class is not working out for me. I'm supposed to do my homework and i end up writing in here.