Grocery Shopping

And giving random people life advice

Hello friends!

I have had sooooo many things on my mind lately, that I have had a hard time narrowing down and honing what I want to write this week. I finally settled on “grocery shopping”. LOL! I promise, this will be slightly more interesting than just talking about grocery shopping though. I also am going to try to keep this one short, but I can’t make any promises on that. I know how long-winded I get.

Ok, so here goes! With my chronic illness—Long Covid, I have many symptoms - chronic fatigue syndrome, insomnia, migraines, brain fog, memory loss, neurological issues (such as involuntary limb jerks, executive dysfunction, aphasia, etc), heart palpitations, shortness of breath, dizziness, numbness, weak and aching muscles, and a few other things here and there. As such, doing most tasks are pretty hard.

Last summer, I was sent to physical, occupational, and speech therapy to try to improve some of the things I have going on. I found that time and time again when I was in PT or SLP that I did alright (all things considered). Essentially, in PT, I was just doing physical movement, and wasn’t using my brain too much. As such, my heart rate remained normal, and I functioned pretty well. When I was in SLP, I did pretty well there, too. He saw where I was having some issues, but on the whole I was doing better than expected and he didn’t think anything what was wrong with me was a long-term issue. He believed my brain fog and such would get better when my fatigue and other major symptoms were under control. In SLP, I wasn’t doing anything physical, I was only doing mental activities.

However, where I always struggled was OT. I was doing tasks that were mental and physical at the same time. And it wore me out super quickly, caused my heart rate to spike pretty high and go up and down quite frequently, and I experienced a lot of dizziness and fatigue with the tasks. Something about going back and forth between mental and physical, or doing physical while I did mental, was really hard on me. I could walk on the treadmill, but it was really hard to answer questions and carry on conversation while I did it. It kind of felt like that trick where people pat their head and rub a circle with their hand on their stomach at the same time. I just couldn’t do it. I can pat OR I can rub. I couldn’t do both at the same time.

Occupational therapy is where I was given a test with a clock on it, and I was supposed to draw the hands at “ten past eleven”. In my mind, I decided that the space between 11 and 12 was the full hour between 11 and 12, so that the minute hand should just be right after 11. Does that make sense? Picture below. (Also, in the pic, you can see what a terrible job I did drawing a box). The OT specialist looked at me with wide eyes after she saw my terrible box and my clock. She said, “Krista! What?” I was laughing at the box, but had no idea I got the clock wrong. She made me look at it again, and I couldn’t figure out what was wrong. She finally told me that 10 after 11 is the minute hand on the 2, and I couldn’t believe it. I learned how to tell time in like 1st grade. This was crazy! She said, “this is what people who have had a stroke do.” Soooooo, that was fun info!

Every week she gave me tasks to try to complete at home. These were usually chores and daily tasks that normal people do all the time. Things like laundry, cleaning my room, cooking for myself, doing dishes, and grocery shopping. I really struggled to do these things, especially doing more than one of them in a day. And no matter how hard I tried to work my way up to it—grocery shopping just wasn’t possible. The fact that it is physical and mental at the same time, plus being in a place with a ton of people and having to pay attention to where I am going and everything I am doing, was just too much. It is an overstimulating experience. My executive dysfunction would be on overdrive there. And it was just too exhausting.

In fact, right before Christmas last year, my mom asked me to come with her and help her with the shopping because it was too much to do by herself. I thought since I wasn’t doing it on my own, and since she was calling the shots, that I could handle, it. However, about an hour in, I couldn’t manage anymore, and I had to go sit on a bench at the front of the store while she finished everything up. This was all pretty disheartening to me.

Flash forward to now, and the past couple of months, I have been little by little having a few more better days here and there. I have been learning how to pace myself and bank my energy much better, and I have been working on some tactics that are helping improve my overall health. In fact, for the last couple of weeks I have been feeling like I am headed back towards the up and up! Fingers crossed, knock on wood, dare I say that I think I am very very slowly starting to feel a little better? Nowhere near my normal functioning self by any stretch of the imagination, but I am feeling some progress.

As such, I decided to do my own grocery shopping for the first time last week and again this week!! Not only were they successful trips, but I was able to bring in the groceries and put them away after the first trip! And on the second trip my dad brought in the bags, but I put them away. After both trips I wasn’t so exhausted that I couldn’t function either! I was actually feeling ok after both! What an exciting development (with my aphasia, it just took me two minutes to remember the word “development”). It is kind of weird to think about celebrating the fact that I could grocery shop. It isn’t something that I ever really thought much about how difficult it could be for some people.

Also, something interesting happened at the second grocery shopping trip. And here is where the subject of this post splits off and takes a turn! LOL! I told you I couldn’t decide what to write about this week. So I am writing about two different ideas in this piece, but they both fall under the grocery shopping umbrella. The first having to do with what I already mentioned—my chronic illness and the journey to being able to grocery shop on my own. And the second having to do with someone I met at the grocery store, the conversation we had, and some musings I had as a result.

As I was walking through produce, a little old lady stopped me and asked me if I could reach something that was too high for her. If I had a dollar for every time I was asked to do this for short people at the grocery store, I would have a dollar each time I go to the grocery store. LOL! I don’t mind. I am happy to help.

I grabbed what she needed and she thanked me. She talked about how hard it was with her height and rheumatoid arthritis and how she wished she was tall like me. I jokingly told her that I hear that a lot and am asked to reach stuff for people a lot. She started talking about how she always hated how short she was, and how I must love being tall. I told her the grass is always greener because I grew up being pretty self-conscious about my height. I didn’t feel very feminine because of it, and how it made me insecure with guys. Especially when I was the only girl in the top 4 or 5 rows of tallest people in my class graduation photo. But how I don’t mind it as much now, and have learned to accept myself.

Then she started in on how thin her hair always was, how much she hated having thin hair, how I had such thick full hair, and she was envious of that. I didn’t mention it, but I am always cursing how much hair I have because it is HOT, gets in my way, and takes FOREVER to curl/style, etc. But, once again, the grass is always greener and we should be grateful for what we have.

Then she started in on the things she didn’t like about herself and said “I guess I don’t like myself very much.” I smiled at her and told her that it made me sad to hear that and there were lots of things about her to like. I said she had pretty sparkling eyes, a beautiful smile, and from what I could tell a good sense of humor.

She got really excited to hear this and gave me a big beaming smile. As I was going to politely say my good-byes and continue about my shopping trip, she began talking up a storm. She said, “Can I ask you something?” I was in a hurry as I needed to finish this trip in the next 20 mins to be to my 4pm appointment on time. But, I decided to humor her. So I said, “sure.”

She said, “I’m really upset because this family with 2 kids are asking to live with me because they have no money and they need a place to stay. I really want to help them, because that is the Christian thing to do, but I don’t think I am capable of it. My place isn’t very big, my only income is social security and I don’t get much—and what I do get my sister is taking a lot of it from me, and I am just in really bad shape with my RA and it would be really hard for me to manage the household with all of them in it.” Then she continued, “but I feel really bad because I know I should help them. I guess I should just take them in and God will provide what I need to have the resources to help them when the time comes. What would you do?”

So, I was honest with her. I said, “I would acknowledge my boundaries and limitations and I wouldn’t take on the responsibility if I wasn’t capable of doing it.” Then I went on to say, “I know that a lot of religions often teaches us to give and give and give and give even when we have nothing to give and when it totally depletes us. But I don’t believe that is healthy or right. Of course we should help people when we can, but giving of yourself beyond your means and ability to the point of being completely drained isn’t, in my opinion, a healthy way to live, and I truly don’t think that is God’s intention. I think some religions have asked people to give more of themselves than they can, and I don’t think that is right. I don’t think that is what God wants.”

I am aware that telling an old woman in the Marion, IL Kroger this was a risk, but she asked me and I am nothing if not honest and authentic. To my surprise, she handled this response very well and seemed relieved by it. Like she needed permission from someone to say “no”. She responded, “but what if I am being tested by God to see if I will help these people even though I have nothing to give them?” I said, “what if you are being tested by God to learn how to have proper boundaries, say “no” when it is necessary, and not deplete and drain yourself of things you don’t have to give?” She thought about this for a moment, and said, “yeah, I think you’re right. My sister is taking so much of my money and this family is very irresponsible and I am too worried they will take advantage of me.” Then she asked, “but how do I know if this is the right decision? How do I know what God is telling me to do?” I said, “you listen to the voice in your gut. Your gut is God telling you what to do. If you are worried about this, and it doesn’t feel right in your gut, then that is God telling you not to do it and to stand up for yourself.”

She smiled and looked so relieved. She said this was a really helpful conversation for her, and she thanked me. I told her that I was happy to help and that I believe while God does want us to help when we can, God also wants us to have boundaries and take good care of ourselves. And that while I was raised Christian, I believe religion can do a disservice to people when they are asking people to give beyond their means and ability and hurting themselves in the process. She really seemed to take this to heart and appreciate the different view point. We said our good-byes, and I headed back to my shopping.

I am fully aware that this conversation and scenario sounds completely made up. Like it doesn’t sound like real life. I have zero idea why she decided to start talking to me about all this, or why this scenario was put in my path. But, I promise you, this is word for word exactly what happened. It was really unusual and I hope I helped. I do believe it is important for us to give, help, and do what we can for others. But, I think a lot of different kinds of institutions in our world have conditioned us not to have boundaries and to be taken advantage of for their greedy gain. And, if I can be real with one little old lady in Kroger and help her with something that her generation was taught differently on, and therapy has helped my generation (and me) immensely with, then that’s what I am gonna do. Let this be a lesson—don’t ask me if you don’t wanna hear my truth! LOL!

So, sometimes being tall, you get asked to help reach groceries on high shelves, and then you are asked to counsel strangers on life decisions. *shrug* I dunno. Life is weird sometimes. Also, in case you were wondering, I made it out of the store in the 20 mins I had, and I made it to my 4pm appointment on time after having put the groceries away at home. So, all was well.

****PS - I JUST HAD ANOTHER PROFESSIONAL ARTICLE PUBLISHED! THIS TIME IT WAS FOR A PUBLICATION CALLED THE SICK TIMES, AND I AM QUITE PROUD OF IT. CHECK IT OUT HERE!!****

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