CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE: EVALUATION
It's been twelve months, two weeks, and three days since I last stopped in this very spot on aisle three. Three months ago, it just might have nearly broken me, shattered me into a thousand little pieces someone would need to sweep away with one of those insanely long blue brooms that spans the entire aisle. It probably would have taken just one pass through, and I'd be gone like any other possible mess on aisle three.
But here I am, once again on the search for a can of peas. It was easy this time—almost too easy—taking the can up off the shelf and into my hands, and yet I still can't bring myself to walk away. I just keep rolling and rolling it between my fingers. Eighty calories for half a cup of undrained peas. Sixty calories for half a cup of drained peas. Six grams of total sugars. Four grams of dietary fiber. Zero grams of total fat. Ingredients: peas, water, sugar, sea salt. I keep rolling and rolling, reading the same things over and over, because I see him standing at the opposite end of the aisle. Not actually him. But him. The guy in the maroon employee polo and grey sweatpants.
And I see her.
Me from one year ago, flushed cheeks and high ponytail.
I smile because she's smiling. I smile because I can't be mad at him. He's not the one who shattered my heart into a thousand little pieces. He's just the cute guy in the grocery store.
I should be happy I found my can of peas without getting smacked in the head, and yet my legs are frozen. I feel smacked in the face and punched in the gut, even as carts squeak by and people maneuver around me, because I know I'll never have a moment like that ever again. It's not necessarily a sad revelation, rather simple. Things are back to the way they should be—easy—too easy—at least in the trivial, mundane, everyday sense.
But here I am in aisle three on the verge of another mental breakdown, but the good kind, a fresh bucket of ice water and a clean slate. I'm no longer blinded by the big flat white ceiling lights above my head. Unlike before when I felt exposed like a fish under a lamp, the spotlight shifts, and I fade back into the shadows. My shoulders slump back down as the crowd applauses in my head, applauses for the catharsis of the weight of the character on my body, shedding the weight that has settled in my chest these last few months and inhaling the life back into my body, my life, myself, the self I've been missing, the girl that was left in the shadows of a dorm building basement.
I look down at the can of peas in my hand, and I see it for what it is—a can of peas.
I look back up at the empty aisle and see it for what it is—aisle three.
I see it all for what it was—a fleetingly absurd moment in time.
I never could have known that I'd be crying in the middle of a grocery store over a can of peas, but not the bad kind of cry that blurs lines and makes your chest hurt, but the good kind that brings clarity to your mind, refreshes your eyes, and swells your heart because that's the beauty of it all. I never could have known, never could have guessed, and neither could he. That's why we daydream about meeting cute boys in grocery stores. We are always looking for hope in the corners of ordinary places.
A can of peas could be just a can of peas, but it also could be a key ingredient to one of your favorite pasta dishes that your mom makes, especially because it made it taste even better than the frozen bag. Vanilla cake mix could very well be your go-to flavor for just about everything because it never disappoints you like a boy in a dorm building basement. A grocery store can just be a grocery store, and most of the time it is.
But there's a reason why I couldn't find that damn can of peas the first time. There's a reason why I was left panicking in aisle three for way too long. One second earlier, or one second later, and I might have missed everything.
Everything.
Yet there's also a reason as to why I found them so easily today.
Every step in and out of grocery store aisles is another step closer to things you don't even know yet, and that's why you keep walking.
No moment will ever be like it.
That's why I stare down at the can one last time.
Him.
A boy I had yet to officially meet.
Her.
Past me, who I'd love to step back into, just for a moment, even though I know she'll never fit me the same like a shirt you find all the way in the back of your closet that you cling to for the sake of memories knowing that if you put it on it doesn't look or feel the same as it once did, and it never will, and yet you keep it, you hold on to it for dear life, even as your fingers let go. Your mind never does. Your heart never does.
I can smile. I can and I will. I wipe my cheeks. I take my can. I take one step back and then another and another until I'm walking out of aisle three sans egg noodles and cake mix, but my heart full of dignity.