A Series of Tearful Episodes: Part 2

In my last column I talked about the 80’s sitcom “The Golden Girls”, and how I loved and could absolutely relate not so much to the “Golden” (yet), but to the “Girl” part of their weekly dilemmas and adventures and my appreciation for how each would help the other get in and out of trouble each episode. While sitting in the hair salon helping a friend who was having a post-divorce mini-home repair crisis I thought of my own At Home experience, a few unforgettable years ago of entering a new category of personhood and the unfamiliar challenges that began to attach themselves and tag along with like old friends and I immediately thought of YOU.

As you remember in part one, I was recently divorced after sixteen years of marriage, and my central air conditioning unit had had a heart attack. I didn’t have the money to operate or resuscitate and I was feeling the effects of the summer heat bearing down on my bedroom windows. I had confidently decided, “I’m single, but I can do this” and so I took a field trip to Wal-Mart in search of an air conditioner for temporary relief.

There I was in the huge store isle. I began to reach for a box, any box, to gingerly place in the shopping cart (buggy); race to pay the cashier and leave the store. Only my annoyance and trepidation mounted when I realized that the box was too heavy. Even the smallest box was too large for my body to carry and m