The Orange Juice Has Pulp In It, BTW

A few months ago, I got sick. Not covid, but a nasty cold. The kind that took my ability to taste, my energy, and my charming good looks. I mean I was a wretch undone. Medicine wasn’t curing my ailments but instead made me drowsy. I could barely talk, head pounding. You know the drill. (Again I feel the need to stress it was not covid)

I drug myself out of bed while my kids were at work and school and made my way up the street to my local grocery store. I got tissue, more meds, can soup (yuck). When I got to the orange juice section, I stood in a fog, much longer than I should have. 

My dilemma wasn’t what brand to get. I like Tropicana or Minute Maid. It wasn’t the price. Everything at the grocery store is higher than….I don’t know, think of your favorite “higher than” joke and insert it here. 

It was the fact that I like pulp in my juice and my children don’t. 

If you’re a mother, you may understand. 

In my mothering, I’ve sacrificed a lot. A lot of times it goes with the territory, sometimes it’s voluntary. As a single mother, I often shoulder the burden of sacrifice alone. Sacrifice magnified!

Part of parenting isn’t just putting your children first. But knowing WHEN to put them first. For years I’ve bought orange juice with no pulp. Because I had trained myself to think that would always be my only option. It never dawned on me that one day they might not drink orange juice at all. Or buy their own. Or simply not care. That one day they would be grown, and not babies. They are both in their late teens and didn’t need me to still buy orange juice without pulp…especially when I was the one in need of the orange juice.

As I stood in front of that refrigerated section of the grocery store, with 80s music playing in the background as my soundtrack, it hit me that it’s ok to look out for me too. I’m the sick one. The one that needed the juice (Orange juice is still used when you’re sick right, or did the cdc change that too? Insert my eye roll)

As I reached for no pulp, my heart said, but you want pulp. Get the pulp! 

And my hand moved to the pulp orange juice bottle. And I grabbed it with authority! (Corny 80’s saxophone solo crescendoed to signify the moment) And I sneezed into my mask as I walked toward check out (we’ll talk about that atrocity another time). I sent out a text in our group chat, the orange juice has pulp in it, btw. And the world did not stop turning. They simply responded “ok”.

I went home, climbed back into my bed and slept, as season 2 of Designing Women watched me. When I woke up, there was a fresh glass of my orange juice with pulp, and a container of soup from a restaurant, on my night stand.

Hey Sis…this post really isn’t about orange juice. Its about you taking care of you! I know you’re rocking motherhood. I know you are! I know you are doing your best. And you are loving on those babies! But please , PLEASE, remember to love on yourself too! Let’s rid ourselves of the notion that motherhood means its mandatory to neglect yourself. Because it’s not…

Your Favorite Sistergirlfriend Authoress,

Valencia Joy