Living la vida lenta

I don't mind moving slowly. Sometimes it's nice to saunter along and consider everything going on around me. What I don't like is not having any choice in the matter. If I try to take more than about a third of my normal stride length I get a shot of pain in my leg (note to self: maybe I can find a way to make a drinking game out of this). Even driving hurts.

Today I was in the supermarket. I had never really paid attention to how big supermarkets are, but if you're moving at quarter speed they're huge- I am so not going to Target or Costco while dealing with this injury. It was kind of frustrating how long the whole thing was taking, but my overwhelming feeling was one of complete boredom.

I'm seldom bored. It's pretty hard to find something in which I don't have at least a passing interest. But walking all the way down the bread aisle to get to the peanut butter was excruciatingly dull. I think if bread makers can't make their product more interesting looking (c'mon guys, can't you come up with any colors other than brown and white?), they definitely need to jazz up their packaging. Otherwise, by the time people like me make it past the 20th kind of whole wheat bread (and we need this why?) they'll be ready to kill themselves.

After shopping I realized it was taking me as long to walk back to the car as it usually does to walk from my house to the supermarket without using the car. I had to step aside on the path so that an old lady with a shopping cart could zip past me.

Moving this slowly sets up a whole new set of decision points during the day, most of which are along the lines of "Is it worth going all the way over there to do that?" It's amazing how many little things I do every day without thinking about them that I now have to consider. Do I really need that drink of water? Should I have that water or will it make me have to get up an extra time to go to the bathroom?Should I go upstairs to change clothes now or should I wait until I have more reasons to make the trek? Should I even try to get to the phone before it stops ringing? It's amazing how many of my routine actions require rethinking. But amazing doesn't make it interesting.