Thoughts from pump 7

The snow was light and wet when it hit my eyelashes. Without the biting wind, maybe it would have felt like something akin to magic. But the wind was cold and carried on its current the sting of ice and aloneness.

I fought the chill with curled shoulders and a hunched back. I didn't have enough gas in the van to make it home with my trunk full of groceries.

Suck in your breath and steady your hips, girl. No one else will do it for you.

I stepped into the wintry slurry and a building conversation of fellow gas-getters. "How you been, Man? I ain't seen you in forever," I could hear as I managed my payment information, lifted the nozzle, and selected a grade that life had been the same ol' same ol'. Whether that's truly a good or bad thing really depends what the same ol' is. Most people, whether out of ignorance or preference, assume it's a positive affirmation and offer some form of congratulations upon hearing the news.

As quickly as I could, I placed the frigid nozzle in my tank and engaged that little kickstand thingie so it could pump itself. A fine invention that little kickstand thingie. Very fine.

With my hands free, I crossed my arms over my chest, tucking my fingers into the sleeves of my sweater as I leaned the backside of my body against the lingering heat of the van.

At the next pump over was one of those midsized SUV deals that my family has long outgrown. But this one only needed to accommodate one car seat whose occupant I could see waving her little arms and legs around, unaware of the extreme change in climate on the other side of the window. I reckoned it was the blustery goings on that excited her so. I, on the other hand, found them harder to admire while standing inside their presence.

And I guess life is usually just like that.

A beautiful brunette sat in the front passenger seat. I watched her as she checked her hair in the side view mirror and then used that mirror to see what was happening behind her where a man wearing a baseball cap was putting gas in that midsized SUV. He kept his hand on the nozzle in lieu of letting the genius kickstand thingie do it for him. We all display our strength in different ways, I suppose.

Looking back to that pretty brunette in the front seat, I could see her scrolling on her phone. Something must've caught her eye, and she shared whatever it was with her baseball capped gas-getter when he entered the car.

How familiar the whole scene looked to me. I thought for a second of all the times I waited in the car as someone stood in the cold, the snow, the rain - all the elements from which I was once protected. But as I played those images in my mind, it was as if I was again just looking at some scene of two strangers. It wasn't my life, but someone else's I happened to be there for.

The nozzle popped, indicating my tank was holding every drop it would be able to hold. I returned it to its holder and myself to my van, just me and the groceries. The couple across the pumps still looked at the phone.

Once upon a time, that was me, too.

It's not me, now.

Is it better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all? I know my answer to that. I have loved. I love still. It's the being loved that I have lost. 

In the closeness of marriage, love sometimes looks like feeling the cold alone so the one you're loving doesn't have to.

If I ever pumped the gas even once in the nearly 30 years Jason loved me, I don't remember it. It was never a question of who between the two of us was going to do it.

From the outside looking in, I imagine it seems a whole lot like melodrama to recount pumping gas in the snow as though it's a tragedy. If that is you as you read this, hold tight to that. I wouldn't wish for anyone to understand what it is I'm really talking about.

I don't particularly like pumping gas. Or driving the entire road trip. Or solving all the problems. Answering all the questions. Cleaning all the messes. Fighting all the fights.

But what I can hardly withstand is the feeling of standing alone in the cold.