Changes

Lately I’ve been whinging on Facebook and Twitter over the closing of my favorite grocery store. Every time I go there, it just makes me sad, though it wasn’t officially closing until recently. But their shelves have been pretty bare for months now, and I’ve been worried about them. And now, my fears have been realized – they are closing. I shopped there today, probably for the last time. I had to fight back tears most of the time I was in the store. Thank heavens they’ve switched the in-store music to something much more upbeat and modern – one good sad song would have had me sobbing! I even took a picture of the front of the store when I left – something I did with the last favorite grocery store that closed.
Now you may be thinking that all of this anguish over a simple grocery store is a bit much. I was thinking that myself as I drove home, still feeling sad and teary eyed. Am I crazy? Am I wasting time and mental energy freaking out over this? Why should it matter so much – it’s just a damn grocery store!

But on the way home, I figured it out.  It’s NOT just a grocery store – it’s change.  And change and I have never been friends.  Ever.  Any kind of change, I resist it.  New clothes, new shampoo, different grocery store – it’s all the same.  And I have always been like this, as long as I can remember.  When I like something, anything, I want to keep it forever.  And losing my favorite grocery store is hitting me especially hard because there have been a lot of even bigger changes in my life lately.  Over the last year there have been a number of life-altering, distressing changes.  Last August, I lost my maternal grandmother.  She was the grandmother I was closest to, so it was very hard to lose her.  When I was back east for her funeral, I visited my paternal grandparents.  As I’ve written here before, that grandmother had Alzheimer’s, so seeing her, and seeing that she had no idea who I was, was like losing her, too.  Five months later, we lost her for good, and I was back east for another funeral.  Then this month, my best friend since high school lost her mother.  I loved her mother – both her parents, really.  They have always been so kind, warm and welcoming.  True, I hadn’t seen them for a long time, but knowing that I can never see her again makes me miss her.  And watching my friend go through the pain of losing her mother, that was hard, too.

Then there are other, not so traumatic, changes.  The new school year is about to start and my oldest son, now a tall 15 year old who towers over me, is starting high school.  High School??  When did that happen?  And my daughter will be in 7th grade – yikes.  Even the “baby”, now 11, will be in 5th grade.  It makes me feel old!

I’m sure there have been other changes I’m not thinking of right now, but you get the idea.  So I think the grocery store closing is just the last straw – the grain of sand that tips the scales and so seems more important than it really is.  I don’t like change, but life is change.  We move forward, and some things and people fall behind us, are lost to us in the here and now.  But we can keep the memories with us as we move forward.

So I will allow myself to feel sad about my grocery store.  Then I will find another store and get used to it and come to like it just as much.  And I will miss my grandmothers and my friend’s mother, and keep their memories alive in my heart.  And I will watch my children grow up and learn to stand on their own, and remember when they couldn’t stand at all.  And I will remember that it’s all life, and it’s all good.  I will never be a friend to change, but maybe I can learn to not mind it so much.

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