I never would have imagined I would be 26 and riding in an automated shopping cart. Goodness, those were for people who were either old, handicapped, pregnant or had special circumstances. For someone who was overly cautious not to  hurt themselves, active and healthy and having no prospects of a husband or starting a family in sight, to THIS….

It’s not a secret I’ve been having a tough physically journey since the accident. I’ve gotten some answers, but new issues arise and it seems like life will never return back to the way it was. You know, “normal”. Being able to hop in the car and drive to wherever I needed to go, getting up at a regular morning hour and be able to work a full day, shopping and standing at the grocery store or mall. The little everyday things that most everyone takes for granted, those are the things I long to do.

Recently, I’ve had a few trips to the store where I learned that my body isn’t letting me stand past 5-10 minutes. For a while, I was stand for up to 20 minutes or so and could keep on walking, but that isn’t the case any more. A recent shopping trip proved that now my threshold is 5 minutes, if that. There’s something about that position that gets me super light-headed, which prompts dizziness and the feeling like I’m going to faint. It’s not at all pleasant and has left me not wanting to go anywhere.

As we all know, Christmas is right around the corner and I’m so far behind on everything, it’s almost comical. I’ve been able to do online shopping, but I learned that getting wrapping paper online can either be 1) super expensive or 2) impossible (as in, it’s not available). For a girl that likes to make presents pretty and wanting to handpick her own wrapping paper, this was going to be an obstacle. (Dare I say that I almost succumbed to using Valentine wrapping paper?!)

My sister came over yesterday and we made a surprise trip to visit a friend. Since that went without incident, she offered to take me to Target to get the items I needed. After talking about our “game plan” (aka: how I could get to the back of the store), she said I should use an automated cart. My initial thought: what would people think of me?

One would think with all that I’ve had to deal with these last 16 months, I would have learned to swallow my pride easily months ago. It’s something I’m working on and (slowly) succeeding at.

After prodding from my sister and her being more than willing to help me get items, I can now say that we maneuvered the store, I FINALLY got to the back of Target to get the items I needed and many items are now crossed off the shopping list. I have a new sense of admiration for those who have to use those automated carts at stores regularly. People constantly dash in front of them, the turn radius is atrocious (yes, I did run into one shelf), you get strange looks often AND reversing leads to an annoying beep, beep, beep noise….

During this memorable shopping trip, I couldn’t help but laugh many times. I know I looked silly, this situation is less than ideal, but the fact that I could laugh through it, is proof that change is happening inside of me. Not to mention, my pride is being broken piece by piece, I’m learning to appreciate the small things and I’m learning what true friendship really means. I’m not sure if I would have learned these lessons had the accident not happened… friends, it’s all about finding joy in the journey and laughing in the moments.

I’d love to know, what circumstance or situation did you last laugh about?