Chocolate Pudding

When I’m really down, which is often, I don’t turn to drugs or alcohol like some people do. I turn to food; I’m an emotional eater. But when I’m really down, it’s not just food I turn to, it’s chocolate fudge pudding. But it’s not just any chocolate fudge pudding. No, it has to be chocolate fudge pudding in a can. That’s right. A can.

In the early elementary years, I would sometimes get chocolate fudge pudding in a cup except back then, it wasn’t a little plastic cup but a small metal can. It was a treat – I grew up poor – and I appreciated when my parents bought the pudding. I loved the taste of the pudding; it was my favorite. Eventually the little metal cans were replaced by the plastic cups and for whatever chemical reason, it changed the taste of the pudding. It was okay but just not the same.

Then I found that my grocery store carries a brand of chocolate fudge pudding in a can. They weren’t the small individual cans but a big can and boy, did that bring back memories of childhood (a good one, which is rare). Back then, things were so simple. Never did I see myself how I am now. I know that goes for a lot of people but it really bothers me.

I never thought I would be forty-two and alone. I never imagined I could have surgery and my brother doesn’t even inquire if I made it through okay or if I needed any help. On that same line, the fact that months pass without a word from my brother would have boggled my mind. He couldn’t even be bothered to return my spare apartment key when I moved nor did he ask if I needed any help.

I have so few genuine friends. I have work friends but once school is out, I don’t hear from them. They tell me they care but I hear not a word from them during the summer. Friends offer to help me or celebrate my books being published or other social things but then back out. I think I have that figured out not only from work friends but with other people too. Maybe this is why my family treats me like a pariah – they don’t want anything to do with me because of my mental health issues. I’m depressed, I have social anxiety, I have OCD. I take pills to try and make me better but maybe the pills keep people at a distance. Who would want to deal with someone with so many problems? Maybe I’m just too difficult to deal with. Maybe I’m just a pain in the ass. Who wants to deal with that?

Anyway, it’s pudding time. I’ve had so many disappointments lately from people I trusted. I’m almost looking forward to the summer when I can just be a hermit and I’m not a thought to anyone.