Beauty before Bacon

When I go grocery shopping without a list it’s always dangerous. Whole meals plan themselves in my head when all I need is toilet paper and Old Bay seasoning.

Next thing I know, I have a cart full of items I could use but don’t need right now.

It’s worse when I haven’t eaten.

As the register beeped, I knew; and I could hear my wallet smirking at me from home.

It makes sense; I mean, this was spur of the moment spending; not the planned out, coupon app, Wednesday circular reading, 2-for1 shopping I normally do. Shopping days are a ritual with me, a sojourn…but that’s a story for another day.

I was going to be short. The cashier looked at me and asked, “Did you want the bacon or those”, pointing to the small bouquet I was cradling.

It isn’t life and death and yet it is.

Flowers hold beauty, signify promise, and say, “look, the world is not so dark”.

And bacon, well, is bacon.

Standing there, my mind held onto a bit of shame from having to choose. It was old. Probably from a time when I thought I was stuck with the choices I made.

No, that shame remnant was older. Back to when I thought I had no choice, when I was hopeless. When I didn’t know that saying “there’s nothing I can do”, was a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Even after I had put a few coins together, added some new and shiny things to my life, I continued to choose between beauty and necessity.

Between being and having.

Acting like my value was the car I drove or my bank balance.

I had forgotten to choose myself.

One of the first promises I made to myself when I moved into my new place just over a year ago was to buy myself flowers whenever possible.

Keeping promises I make to myself is paramount to me. For so long, no one told me I mattered, that what I wanted was important. That led me to dark places that did me no good and gave me nothing.

Keeping promises I make to myself is Me putting me on my Wants List. (you don't have a wants list? We need to talk about that)

And I like cut flowers.  They remind me I’m choosing to see beauty in the world. That means each day, I have a choice in how I can be an actor for change and choice or a reactor of circumstance.

Glad I learned that I have endless second chances, one chance at a time.

Choosing me, in even the small and mundane is a recognition of the greater Power inside me. And a big act of ignoring ugly remnants from the past.

So I chose the flowers… AND the bacon. Wut? I got Apple Pay.

Stefanie B.