TheBanyanTree: Fragility

[Teague, Julie Anna]

> Maybe it’s living through the trump years. Maybe it’s the pandemic. Maybe it’s my age. Probably it’s winter and the stress of having just moved to a new house. I’ve always felt very resilient of mind and body, dealing with life’s ups and downs. A left hook here and a roundhouse there, but always landing on my feet. And now, despite being in a pretty safe position in many ways, I feel more fragile. I was in a bit of a funk anyway, today—see any or all of the above reasons—and then the kitchen sink backed up, which is never a good thing. I went to Kroger to buy drain-o and food which can be microwaved or eaten raw (since my stove will remain inoperable until an electrician can rewire something in another week and a half) and Kroger has seen fit to rearrange aisles all over the store. Some of them, namely the one that my cereal is on, the cereal that I’ve eaten for years now, is nowhere to be found. Why Kroger, why?? Why now? As if anyone needs a seismic shift in the one place you count on for being steady ground. As if anyone needs to stumble in from the cold after a long work day to buy a couple of things to feed the family and end up in a labyrinth of glassware and spatulas instead of the cereal aisle.
> 
> Intellectually, I know this shouldn’t be a big thing, but emotionally it made me feel like a hopeless idiot, wandering around the store with a frown on my face. I even asked a worker and he told me it just shifted two aisles over. No…no it didn’t. I looked two aisles over, and then three and four and all the way to where I know it isn’t, over by the cleaning supplies and pet food. At least the drain-o was pretty much where I expected it to be. I grabbed a bag of corn chips because I saw them on an ender and figured I may never find them again, and some coffee since half the coffee aisle was empty. I considered, briefly, buying several bags, but I refuse to give in to herd mentality, another depression hot-button for me right now. 
> 
> Now I’m home, feeling like I’ve been blown off course by a missing organic cereal aisle and the rest of my day has felt weirdly sad. Maybe it isn’t the cereal. Maybe it’s just everything. 
> 
> Julie