Empty

Between the blog and Facebook and Twitter and all the other gizmos, it's not that easy to hide from life and quite often I feel like a prize pigeon, on display in a glass box, yowling pitifully (ohmypoortoebetty).

Pigeons aside, in Borders a couple of days ago I passed a table (they're clever, those bookshops, putting out display tables full of terribly interesting volumes, so you just have to stay a moment and browse) with a selection of self-help books. Right on top was a volume entitled "Dealing with Empty Nest Syndrome." I sort of wondered whether God had put that there for me. I picked it up and flipped through it, as one does, surreptitiously, so that no-one actually thought I might be "Dealing with Empty Nest Syndrome." The first was about a woman staring into her grocery cart at the supermarket and bursting into tears when she realizes that she will never need to buy the same quantities of food now that her child is away in college. I think J's mother had a similar experience, staring into her empty basket and seeing the horror. I put the book down rather quickly. That's my avoidance technique.