There’s an English slang word that I learned about earlier this year. The word is coddiwomple. It means “to travel purposefully toward an as-yet-unknown destination,” and that’s exactly what’s about to happen. In other words, I don’t know where I’m going with this blog, but, like any good man, I intend to make good time getting there.

For breakfast this morning, I walked to Hardee’s, and although I didn’t realize it, I had my heart set on a steak and egg biscuit, which was a staple item for me several months ago when I was in the midst of fixing up the old house I was living in and getting ready to move. Well, when I got to Hardee’s, I was informed that the steak and egg biscuit was no longer available. It actually took three people to confirm this fact, and the last one, a lady, said, “That was a seasonal item, and the season is over.”

Well, I almost walked out the door, like, Screw you people. I’m taking my business elsewhere. But I was in a hurry to get to the dentist to have two cavities filled, so I decided to stay and eat a fried chicken biscuit instead. (And yes, the irony of eating fast food thirty minutes before going to the dentist to have cavities filled is not lost on me. All I can say is, make hay while the sun shines.) Anyway, it wasn’t the worst breakfast I’ve ever had, but it certainly wasn’t worth getting a cavity over and tasted a lot more like disappointment than chicken.

Always one to overanalyze, I started thinking way too much about why I was so let down about the steak and egg biscuit season being over. I mean, it’s just a steak and egg biscuit. From Hardee’s.

The first place my mind went was this time about a year and a half ago when I’d asked a friend to do me a favor and host another dance instructor who’d come into town to teach for a convention I used to organize. Well, my friend ended up having some of his friends over that night, and my dance instructor was upset, partly, because he thought they were too loud. My first reaction was to get angry, since I thought my friend’s actions reflected poorly on me, so I brought it up in therapy thinking that I’d be agreed with. But I wasn’t. My therapist said that I’d asked someone to do something for me, and then I got angry because they didn’t do it the way I would’ve. She said that I should have been more clear about my desires, said something like, “I’d like you to host someone, please, but I don’t want you blast Michael Buble music until three in the morning. How do you feel about that?”

I said I could have said that, but this sort of thing had never come up before. And then my therapist said, “You’ve been really fortunate. You’ve been spoiled.” (Spin this however you want, but it didn’t feel like a compliment.)

So after the thing at Hardee’s this morning, I started wondering if that was it, if I was just spoiled. And then I started thinking of all the words that are associated with being spoiled, words like rotten and brat, and then I felt like shit because I was convinced I was an entitled little twit who almost always gets his way and throws a temper tantrum every time Hardee’s changes it’s menu. (Sometimes my therapist says that I’m married to suffering, and looking at what I’ve just written, she may be right about that.)

Then I started thinking what a perfectly disgusting word spoiled is, how we should probably ban it from the English language–at least when used to refer to humans and not eggs–because it’s never used to build anyone up. It’s always used to put someone in their place, like, “Who do you think you are, wanting a steak and egg biscuit from Hardee’s?”

So up until the time the dentist put a drill in my mouth, this idea of being spoiled was all I could think about, and I kept trying to figure out the difference between feeling like you’re worthy of good things (like a decent, fast food breakfast) and feeling like you’re spoiled, ready to be thrown out with the sour milk. I’m still not sure I have an answer, but I think it has to do with the difference in feeling like you’re entitled to something as opposed to just wanting it. And I think how severely you react to the disappointments in your life will let you know which side of the fence you fall on.

By the time my cavities were filled and I could no longer open the right side of my mouth, I decided I wasn’t spoiled. Yes, I’m fortunate, but there are so many things a lot bigger than breakfast that don’t go my way. And I didn’t throw a tantrum this morning, I just felt disappointed. More accurately, I felt sad.

A little over three years ago, I was about to break up with my ex. I’d been convinced we were going to get married, but we were fighting all the time, and it was usually about something stupid, like the fact that I wouldn’t go to McDonald’s a block away and get him a McFlurry. (And no, he was not in a wheelchair or somehow unable to walk or drive himself.) Well, I was fucking miserable. Some days I’d just lie in bed and stare at the wall. Then one night we went out to eat at Ed Walker’s, and all I really wanted was a piece of chocolate cake. I had my heart set on it. Like, my life may suck right now, but at least there’s chocolate cake.

So I ask the waitress if they have chocolate cake today, and she says yes. But then she brings German Chocolate Cake, and I start fighting back tears because IT’S NOT THE SAME THING, BITCH.

No, I didn’t say that, but it was probably written all over my face.

Later my ex said that the waitress probably thought I was crazy, which, of course, I was. But I wasn’t crazy because I started crying over German Chocolate Cake–I was crazy because I was dating him. And I was disappointed he wasn’t the one, and I was sad because I loved him, and there was no way in hell that it could work. So I shoved those feelings down at home, and they all came rushing back up as soon as they had a decent chance and I was too focused on chocolate cake to stop them.

So here’s where we ended up, here’s where we coddiwompled. First, the disappointment over breakfast this morning really wasn’t that big of a deal. But it did cause me to stop and realize that there are actually some pretty big disappointments in my life right now, a lot of things bigger than cheap biscuits that haven’t turned out like I thought they would, things that I had my heart set on. And although I don’t want to start feeling sorry for myself, I think it’s okay to feel sad about those things. I think it’s okay to grieve the death of my fantasies. It’s okay to be sad when seasons end. And maybe that means for a while, I need to spoil myself–sleep in a little later, eat my favorite breakfast even if it’s bad for me, go out for chocolate cake. After a while, I’m hoping, sadness will let me go because I listened to it and didn’t shove it down, and then I can strike out with purpose toward an as-yet-unknown destination with nothing to hold me back.

[As a side note, there’s part of me that feels my ex is largely responsible for this blog. In the first place, he’s the reason I went to therapy. In the second, he gave me this laptop. My therapist says that he doesn’t deserve any credit because it was how I responded to the shitty situation that made the difference. But as Andrew Solomon says, “If you banish the dragons, you banish the heroes.”]