Silent Tears in the Supermarket Aisle

Sometimes, it’s just about sadness, pure, ridiculous sadness

created with canva.com on a very strange day

This life of adulthood is strange, deceitful, and boring. I never knew that one of the stages of life would be unlearning how to feel it. 

Step by step, without noticing, we leave friends behind in the past. And with them, the café meetups, the late-night bar gatherings, those concerts of obscure bands we all nod along to, pretending they’re “so cool,” or even the simple freedom of having time to wander around a park with a book in hand, in some faraway city where we once thought life would remain forever.

And all of this is interrupted by the absurdity of work — those endless hours of our lives we trade for money. 

It’s strange how, when we’re young, this notion of time lost to work doesn’t weigh on us. How, in our twenties, we believed we had eternity ahead of us. We realize this was the biggest lie ever when we hit our thirties. 

Work takes the best of us — I’m becoming more convinced. And from the best parts of us, it steals our good moods, patience, and energy. The energy that we once thought was limitless and renewable. But over time, we realize it’s not and must be spent only on what’s strictly necessary.

But saying goodbye to friends isn’t something we want to do — it just happens. In my case, they were the first to say goodbye. They started finding partners, getting married, and even having children. And I, who was always so precocious in so many things, remained behind on this front. 

Yet, I was stuck in a too-lonely single life, where no friends existed, only work. A work that took the best part of my youth and led me to one of the biggest burnouts of my whole life.

I was so lonely, walking in the dark without seeing where my next step would lead me. So, I somehow remained still, fearing that I would fall off a cliff. When I finally found love, though late, it was a welcome change. Life was going somewhere.

But now, here I am, in the darkroom again— married, yet particularly, feeling completely overwhelmed, crushed, reduced to tears. 

I feel older — and this biological limiting of womanhood is becoming so absurd in my mind to the point of madness. I’ve been consumed by anguish, tormented day and night by something I used to despise just ten years ago. 

At 24, I never wanted to be a mother. I found it limiting, even anti-feminist. And now, ten years later, I feel exactly the opposite. I think of every cliché about motherhood that people used to tell me — I’m feeling them all, even though I’m not a mother. 

They say children give life meaning and purpose to our existence. Perhaps they’re right because, in their absence, I feel nothing but an emptiness that weighs on my chest, a tremendous panic at the possibility that my identity might, in the end, be the one I once rejected: not being a mother. I can’t seem to accept that this is happening. I can’t seem to look ahead and see that’s who I will be.

The days pass, and the anguish grows like a storm brewing each month, unsettling me more and more as I get older. Only I and other women may understand this. 

As loving as they may be, our husbands are distant from it, some more, some less, but they will never feel this anger inside our hearts. 

It’s our mistake to believe that a romantic partner can complete us. It’s so not true in most of the cases. But then, who do we have left?

But yesterday — yesterday was a deeply strange evening.

I left the house in the car while he slept on the sofa. It was raining heavily as autumn began to settle in, it was so dark outside, yet I drove to a store to buy paints and colored pencils. I felt the need to draw again, to paint, even though I know I’m terrible at it. I wanted to return to that childhood point, the one where, at this time of the year, we would fill our cases with paper, pencils, colors, and drawings. 

But I did it because I wanted to give all, not to me, but to a child — one that doesn’t exist, of course, but one that I stubbornly imagine is already here by my side. I wanted to pretend I was a mother shopping for his kid.

How absurd!

My escape from home was made in a state of paranoia, with the urge to keep driving aimlessly, as if nobody would notice my disappearing, and as if years could pass, and only when I was ready to be myself again would I return home.

I caught myself dreaming of driving all the way to Spain — don’t ask me why — and stopping in Toledo. That night, I dreamt of being on a train, traveling eternally, unable to get off— a recurring dream.

But I didn’t drive to Spain. I stopped at a supermarket for no real reason. One of the new pastimes for adults, in the absence of something to relieve profound boredom, is going to the supermarket. I’ve noticed this a while ago.

“At least we get to see people,” said someone.

And there I was, alone, feeling utterly crazy, watching people pass me by — this couple, slightly younger than me, with two kids, buying Christmas treats even though it’s still far off. And at that moment, that was it… that was my “deal breaker.” 

I wanted to sit down on the floor, just like I used to in my teenage years when I was home alone, and start crying right there, in the aisle with the mops and cleaning products, as if I were in a psychiatrist’s office. As if I was literally crying for help.

So, I did. But I cried silently, on the inside, walking past the people, feeling as though they could see my soul as if they were holding up a giant magnifying glass to me. 

But then I looked at their faces. 

All of us—adults with children, without children, single or married—are incredibly sad, tired, and defeated. I confirmed what I had been feeling all along: how we’ve lost the joy of life for the good things. How life has become, to all of us, filled with a weight no one told us we would feel.

And how we make fun of everything that used to excite us just a few years ago, and we shouldn’t have stopped doing: going to the cinema, to a bar, watching a concert, or even—yes, like children—getting our hands dirty with paint so that something might grow inside us— if not life, then at least…. 

At least hope.

Hi, I’m Araci.

If you enjoyed what you read and think my work deserves support, consider “buying me a coffee.” 

Your contribution helps me continue creating and investing in what I do.

Thank you so much

With gratitude,

Araci