My eyes are thick with the ghost of salted tears on them, even though I have washed my face and showered and changed and felt fresh air on my face since the last one spilled. My throat is closed, and although I know I should eat something, my stomach protests at the thought of anything in it. My legs anchor me in this spot, and my arms are heavy as though under an x-ray apron. I’m tired, and upset, and I don’t even know exactly why I feel that way.  All I know is that it is overwhelming, and beginning to take over.

It started this afternoon, when I thought about what I had done so far.  At that point, I had had lunch, had done a half-assed job of cleaning my kitchen and cleaned the litter box (as well as the laundry room – that cat is messy, this is a big deal).  Stepping back for a second, I felt like that was accomplishing a lot these days. Then I thought of the situation in the bathroom, and began to hyperventilate.

You see, I have run out of conditioner. This never happens.  I usually have seven bottles of back-ups, different kinds that I have tried and not loved but also not thrown away because I very much need back-ups.  Just like I need to have back-ups in life, I am the sort of person who requires hair contingency plans.  I have curly hair, you see, and conditioner is far more necessary than shampoo. In fact, I go through four times as much conditioner as shampoo.

For some reason, this conditioner thing is like… really hard to deal with.

I think of going to the store – walking even, it’s not too far – and picking up my VO5 conditioner with the pink cap, and I know that this is not a big deal, I know this logically, but it seems like such a momentous task. I have had no problem going to the store and buying groceries, but I cannot seem to bring myself to buy conditioner.  It is so far from rational, that even I cannot rationalize it.

When I’m sitting at home, or staring at the bathroom cabinet where I usually keep things like this, I think of buying conditioner, and just the thought of this not-yet-bought conditioner reminds me of how very little I have in the bank, which of course reminds me of those bills that keep coming without respite no matter what my job situation might be.  I start wondering how long before I actually stop being able to afford conditioner and resort to removing the tangles in my hair with my brush and no help from anything.  Then I realize that I have been doing this for four days.

It occurs to me that I am crazy; even if I can not bring myself to go to the store and pick up my pink-capped conditioner, I can just get Doug to pick it up on his way home, or to go for me.  I can ask him to do that.  He will probably do it without even asking me any questions, like “why can’t you do it yourself?”  He’s pretty marvelous that way.

Still, that thought leads to the next: what if my favourite conditioner runs out?

Of course someone, somewhere came up with the concept of conditioner, and someone, somewhere came up with the precise formula for that conditioner. I could always just read the label or ask the internet for a formula to actually make conditioner, try making it myself, and could then replenish my supply that way.  And that’s only if the need got so very dire that no other conditioner on the face of the planet works as well as the VO5 with the pink cap.  If that happened, I could just devote my life to developing a better version of conditioner, a new VO5 with the pink cap, for dry or damaged hair.  I could find purpose in providing countless curly-haired women with conditioning relief!

I am oddly reassured at that.  But I still can’t bring myself to go to the store and pick up my conditioner.

It didn’t really start today, come to think of it. It takes a long time to get to the end of a bottle, without thinking of buying a new bottle.  It doesn’t happen all of a sudden. Today was a strange day that culminated in this moment, but if I think about it… it didn’t really start today.

And it really isn’t about conditioner.