closings and triggers

There's a diner near me that's closing. It's an old-school institution, it's shiny and silver and it's the kind of joint where you could order the best tuna melt in the world and chase it with a milkshake, and feel that in a world of bat-shit crazy, at least something in this world could be put together right.

Viking took me there the afternoon after we lost Celine.  My parents had swooped into town like the heroes they are, and took Niblet on an all-day shopping spree at the mall.

This diner is a near a Goodwill thrift store.  I went up to our attic and bagged and boxed up ALL of Niblet's old clothes.  There wasn't a ton of her baby stuff there anyways, because I tend to cycle all of her stuff out to two families with girls who live on a shoestring and could use her hand-me downs. But whatever was up there came down the stairs.  "I need it out of the house," I said to Viking.

So we loaded up his car.  There were about five trash bags worth of clothes and shoes.  There was also a random bag of maternity clothes.  We dropped the bags off at Goodwill, and then drove a half mile down the road to the diner.

I was crampy and dazed.  I ordered a cup of chicken noodle soup, which I happen to know they make, it doesn't come from a can.  It was so good that I ordered an extra quart to take home.  I recall being amazed that I even wanted to eat anything, because usually when I am in the midst of depression I starve beautifully.  I'm not much of a stress eater.  But that afternoon, after ridding my house of the vestiges of dreams, there was nothing I wanted more than to fill myself with something.  Soup was good enough.

This diner will always be a part of my psyche.  You may be surprised to read that I loved going back, even with the awful associations it conjured up for me, but it was no more triggering for me than the bed I sleep on every night, that I curled up in after every awful return from a hospital D&C.

It's not terribly surprising then, to discover just how triggered I am to learned that it will close and make way for a Starbucks.