And I Wonder.

I sit in a diner, the air smells faintly of burnt grease and ammonia. I sit in a bright shiny booth stirring my coffee with a thin plastic straw, thinking about my sessions with Dr. M. Immersed in my thoughts I watch without interest as a dark skinned man mops the floors, dipping his thick stringed mop into muddy water, returning the grime back to the checkered tile floor.

Thanks gwen!

A nondescript waitress asks if I am ready and I order a BLT with no bacon on wheat toast with some fruit on the side. My back is facing the door but I know when people walk in or perhaps out too because the metal bell chimes every time the door opens. I glance around me and realize it is almost closing time, one half of the place is shut down with the chairs on the tables, probably so it will be easier to mop. There is an older couple next to the window in the front, gazing out into the nothingness of the gray, bleak sky while sipping their coffee and I wonder if it's something they put in the water that gives everyone in here that far away look in their eyes.

There is a man in a suit counting money at the counter and a women sitting a couple seats down in an apron eating pancakes. This juxtaposition makes me chuckle to myself because just when I really start to believe the world has changed something like this slaps me in face and wakes me up.

All of a sudden I hear a familiar song fill the room and I ask myself why I didn't hear the music before. I start tapping my foot to the beat and wonder if I too am just a small town girl, living in a lonely world and I look up from the swirls in my coffee half expecting to see that midnight train pull up in front of the diner to take me to anywhere. It is then that I realize how perfect the final scene in The Sopranos was with Tony and Carmela sitting in the booth of a diner listening to that familiar tune on the radio because it captured a certain essence of American culture in a way that every heart beating red, white, and blue can relate to no matter where they are from.

Here I am in this diner dissecting my sandwich, eating it piece by piece, first the juicy tomatoes, then the crisp lettuce and finally the slightly burnt toast and I

Thanks grumpy chris!

ask myself how it is that I came to be in this quintessential American moment because everything in my life defied the norms of the country that I call home. Although perhaps I'm exaggerating that point because NOT everything in my life defied the norms, but my life didn't look like the America they showed on TV, the America I grew up learning about in school, the America that always seemed a part me yet an arms length away. While growing up I felt detached from the cultural conscious of the nation that I unquestioningly pledged my allegiance never believing that I would ever be a part of it and then all of a sudden here I am, in any town USA drinking coffee, eating a sandwich and watching myself sitting in a diner that smelled faintly of burnt grease and ammonia, lingering with the nostalgia of a distant time, in a far away land, that wasn't so different and reminds me of my yesterday, my today and without a doubt my tomorrow.

For some reason, this thought grabs hold me and shake me to my core, I see how things that once seemed impossible can one day be my reality. I trace my thoughts to figure out how I got to such an amazing conclusion, and all on my own too. It is with this on my mind that I decide not to go to therapy tomorrow.