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That Kind of a Person

By on February 1, 2022

By Michelle Goering

Here I am, in the McDonald’s parking lot. Again. I fear I’m becoming lazy and self-indulgent, looking for the cheap thrill of the predictable packets McDonald’s peddles. The precise oval of hash browns peeking out from its little paper sleeping bag. The intoxicating smell of American cheese and bacon wafting from the paper-wrapped pillow of biscuit. This perfectly proportioned, packaged-just-for-me coffee with its domed lid and sloped warm girth. The packaging—the non-consumable part of the McDonald’s experience—is part of what I like about coming here.

McDonald’s appeals to me especially now, in these two years and more of the pandemic. During this time I’ve survived a cancer diagnosis and treatment, my mom’s death and solo settling of her estate, my twin sons’ entry to college, our pet chicken’s demise, my husbands’ months working from home, my in-laws’ move, and endless worry about the world’s injustices and pain. My heart is heavy with grief.

I want to know what’s coming. I need something predictable—the same as when I had it last time, and the time before that. With my son—who’s studying at community college from home—I come through this drive-thru each week for $1 Cokes, then park in a shady spot. We catch up on what we’ve been thinking about at our computers in our rooms down the hall from each other each day. We rely on this ritual.

I know McDonald’s food and packaging are not good for me or for the planet! It’s an occasional treat, I tell myself. Today it’s not even for me. This late breakfast is for my sons. Miles is my usual McDonald’s partner; his twin Gabe is home for winter break. I guess I’m angling for Most Favored Mother status, enticing them with formerly forbidden treats. When my sons were small? We never went to McDonald’s. I was adamant. So when did I go from being the stern gatekeeper to their supplier of this morally questionable consumable?

Also: can I disdain McDonald’s in my head and in public when I frequent it in private? I like to think of myself as a careful consumer, and a healthy eater. I buy—and grow!—organic veggies and drink my water and just did a five-day no-sugar challenge last week. I don’t consume a lot of junk, I tell myself. McDonald’s is an exception.

But if I’m honest, during the last couple of years, in the midst of medical procedures and goodbyes and heartache, many of my actions seem to be exceptions to my usual behavior. When I put them all together I’m surprised at myself. I didn’t think I was that kind of a person.

My self-assessment is one thing: it’s also disquieting to face someone else’s opinion of the kind of person I am. I decided my stepmother-in-law, Ann, was not the best confidant the day I told her I was not going to finish my master’s degree. I’d done all the classes and landed the job I wanted, at Yale University Press; a Master’s in Interdisciplinary Humanities wasn’t going to qualify me for any particular advancements. I was done with school: moving on.

Ann looked at me over her plate of fatty steak and runny eggs, her favorite diner breakfast and one that visually turned my stomach. She said, pointedly, “I didn’t know you were that kind of person.” I was puzzled. “What kind of person is that?” I asked. “A quitter,” she stated, shoveling in another large bite of steak and chewing decisively.

Wow, I thought, could one action make me a member of the tribe of quitters?

I learned over time that Ann’s thinking was rather black and white. People were one thing or another: good or bad, right or wrong. Me? I noticed the nuances in everything and everyone. I wasn’t sure what kind of person anyone was, least of all myself. I’d started that thesis project three times over two years, but I didn’t really care about it. I felt twinges of guilt along the way, but ultimately little conflict about ditching it, and only relief when I’d made the decision.

But the negative comments others make about our characters dog us. I took an internship with a local publication during college. The head editor’s semester assessment praised my writing ability and positive attitude. But he also said I was, at times, “lackadaisical” about my work. I knew that wasn’t a compliment, but I didn’t know exactly what it meant, so I looked it up: “lacking enthusiasm and determination; carelessly lazy.” Whoa. Nobody had ever said this about me before. But it felt true, at least in this instance. Just like the thesis, my heart wasn’t stirred by the work, and that stirring seemed to be necessary for me to exert myself.

So, how did I get here? How did I become someone who frequents McDonald’s weekly? This question is followed by other questions, more disturbing ones. How did I become someone who keeps to myself, avoiding gatherings even on Zoom, when I used to organize them and hold various formal roles in my community? How did I decide I didn’t have to answer every text and call? How did I become someone who lets her sons eat anything they want and never exercise, someone who no longer insists on family prayers together or set mealtimes? How did I become someone who binge-watches Bones and other gory murder-filled shows in the middle of the day, munching a ham sandwich as I watch eyeballs fall out and skin slip from bone? I’m a pacifist from a Mennonite family, yet I devour Jack Reacher thrillers in all their vigilante violence, my inner voice saying, Yes. Yes, those slimeballs deserve all that. And more.

Are these signs I’ve gotten sucked into a hedonistic gyre, that I’ve given up my moral center? Maybe I really am that kind of person. The morally lackadaisical kind, I mean.

But I don’t really believe that. The truth is that I know myself by my interior reality, despite my inconsistent actions. My heart says everything is not okay for most of us in the years of this pandemic, political unrest, and looming global threats, that these are extraordinary times. I am in need—we are all in need—of comfort. My heart says be gentle with myself and others, not rigid and punishing. My heart says this too shall pass, and that my core values are intact, despite these infractions of my own usual standards.

Perhaps I can be a good wife, daughter, mother, friend, and citizen, and be a mess of contradictions too. I can love myself and my husband and my kids and feed them junk now and then. I can see myself and others as inconsistent, yet still possessing qualities of the Divine, with great potential for good. I can cut myself some slack and allow some self-indulgence while I do the heavy work of grieving all these losses. And at the same time, I can try not to be lackadaisical, despite my tendencies. That’s the kind of person I am. Whether I go to McDonald’s or not.

 

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Michelle Goering has been writing forever, and for an audience for about a year. She is a musician with a background in publishing, married and the mother of twin college-age sons. A San Diegan originally from a Kansas farm, she’s recently published in Her View from Home, Sasee, and Christian Science Monitor: Home Forum.

Michelle can be found on Facebook at Michelle Goering.

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