More Change

There was this neighborhood clothing store, Pinkspot, that I used to go into on my days off. In the beginning, it was a mother daughter duo. The mother did alterations while the daughter managed the store. I've spent hundreds of dollars there, more so to satiate my heart, rather than my clothing needs. It was routine, I would venture out after cleaning the house, try on clothes, buy, ponder about buying, bring stuff in to alter, check out the funky and cheap inventory the daughter brought back from China or LA. I enjoyed it all. In time the daughter left, she found a full-time job with United Airlines. I found the mother on her own, opening the metal cage in the mornings and closing it by herself in the evenings.

Today I went in and found someone unfamiliar siting behind the glass counter. It bothered me, besides being a stranger, maybe more so because they weren't chinese. It was always comforting to walk into the store and find the mother at the alteration table and hear her stories as a Chinese immigrant living in Vietnam and updates on how her two daughters are doing. She told me she had sold the business and was returning to Vietnam for vacation. She said she was working until the end of October. I was devastated. It makes sense, I could see the store faltering since her daughter left, a kind of neglect that would warrant the selling of it. But all I could think of was how walking into the store, being in the store, would be entirely different and less fulfilling than before. It wasn't all about the shopping. The mom and daughter were part of it all, my transition into the neighborhood, my random part time job at the Spa Bar when I needed new attire, my weekly rants about work and living in SF.

Sad and strange, I feel like I'm loosing a sense of stability. When will change stop - rather when will my attitude towards change stop and my happiness exist independent of it?