Day 375: My life in print

During our usual pit stop at the bookstore yesterday I had an epiphany. Mads and I spend a lot of time at the bookstore, actually. It is one of the few places where I can unload her from the much-loathed stroller and let her crawl around without getting too many sideways glances that seem to say "A department store is not a playroom, take your child elsewhere." But back to the epiphany; come to think of it, that may be too strong a word, I don't want anyone getting their hopes up. So maybe it was more of an insight. And here it is: you can tell where someone is in their life by the aisle they head to in the bookstore.

This occured to me as we passed the travel section. I saw the stack of Let's Go Europe on the shelf, which was surely the bible back when I made the requisite sojourn abroad in my early 20s. I suddenly pictured my own worn, dog-eared copy that I left in a hostel in Italy all those years ago. And then we wandered past the weddings section, where I spent endless hours camped out trying to school myself in limited wedding etiquette. The home and renovation section, which I visited when searching for a way to incorporate Fernando's giant German beer stein (from his requisite European adventure) into the decor of our first home. Which led me to, of course, the pregnancy & baby aisle, and all those books by all those "experts" who, as it turns out, do not know my baby better than I do after all. After Maddie was born I made a visit or two to the shelf dedicated to depression, where I was disappointed to find a shocking lack of titles on the topic of post-partum depression. I love her to bits, but Brooke Shields does not a library make, you know? And of course now I head straight to the kids section of the store, stroller and sippy cup and baby in tow. Along the way there have been forays into religion and spirituality when I was trying to "find" myself, philosophy when I was trying to better myself, self-help when I was trying to understand myself, and of course fiction whenever I want to just forget about myself.

I look forward to a future spent in the aisles of potty training, crafts, adolescence, cooking, health.... And who knows, if all goes well, maybe many years from now I will find myself back where I started: standing in the travel aisle with the whole world laid out before me, but this time with life's biggest accomplishments and responsibilities tucked safely behind.