When I Lost My Love: Trader Joe’s
Joe lifted me up higher than I had been socially, then locked the door behind me
The island of misfits: where I finally belonged, had always been welcomed. I started working at Trader Joe’s grocery store in 2015 after getting fired from my corporate wellness job of less than a year. It was hell sitting at a desk alongside phony ass-kissers, but I wanted to make some decent money, carry a laptop, look grown and successful. I was the weird one though, and when they gave me the boot (my first time getting fired), it felt awful for a moment, but opened the door to something wonderful. TJ’s, as it is affectionately known, has a cult following, a quirky crew, and a nearly perfect opportunity for offbeat folx (or just anyone) looking for hard work, fair pay, kooky fun, and a sense of belonging.
It was downright dreamy to me, like going back to high school with a social standing in reverse: the nerds, queers, punks, art kids, everyone honestly, was on top and determined to make up for lost time. I don’t know about you, but I wasn’t popular in high school. Very few people knew who I was at my 20-year high school reunion. It was a class of 500 and maybe 75 people showed up? Not a huge gathering, but I recognized pretty much everyone. My friend Deena talked me into going, that’s fine, I have nothing to lose and my inner child to amuse! I like who I am now, could the ‘cool’ kids display the same in relative middle age? It was fun to walk the room, I felt open and confident. But working at TJ’s always felt like that. It meant the world to me to socially re-write the awkward years; I liked almost everyone at my store and a lot of them liked me back. Great times.
The party continued for three years; I made close friends, gathered with many outside of work, and conversed with a large swath of the local community: people in the arts, the helpers, the lonely or downtrodden, the jovial fools, and occasionally the deceptive. Auras don’t lie. It was fun learning people, playing with the construct of identity, and feeling personal freedom. I was interacting with hundreds of people a day, exchanging energy with thousands? It could be a rush and I had to practice keeping my protection up so I didn’t get drained. You’ve maybe noticed people in retail wearing black obsidian around their neck as it is said to absorb negative energy. We get tired being in the public and could use assistance, I feel solidarity with that.
But it was a small price to pay for having a real ‘family’ and ‘community.’ I say these in quotes since they are ideas and constantly morphing. The five closest people to us at any given time define who we are, like a family, and likely shift throughout our lives (lucky to keep some fixed loving individuals in the mix). That’s along with the larger group context for interactions and exchange, a community, the stage for the players and extras to extract meaning. But the people at work really were my family and community for awhile and I loved them deeply. Work constitutes so much of our adult lives that it is a natural process to assimilate into the fold as seamlessly as possible. And why it is painful to give so much of yourself to a process that may be antithetical to your very personhood. So many struggle to find work that keeps them sane. The ‘come as you are’ ethos of Trader Joe’s was a breath of fresh air and a letting down of a long held guard. It was easy to just be love, finally.
I didn’t know I was neurodivergent at the time, but looking back it only makes sense why this environment worked so well and was likely full of other NDs. Restless mind and body? Walk the store, lift, pack, unpack, stock, clean, cook, generally never stop moving for eight hours, excellent. Need a lot of stimuli? Talk to vibrantly strange and wonderful people in and out of the crew at all times. Crave a routine? This corporate success thrives on a defined but rotating schedule of tasks, always know what is expected of you. If you excel at something, you get more of it. I was a demo (food sample station) queen for awhile and adored feeding the public and then the crew after the store closed for the day. I was rewarded for my dedication and enthusiasm in my annual reviews and raises. A happy little oasis, yes?
But change is the only constant and all things come to an end. I didn’t intend to part for good when I took maternity leave surrounding the birth of my first child. When my three months were up (a sorry standard indeed in the US between a mother and her baby, who doesn’t even begin to differentiate itself from her for around a year. Some get much less though, close to zero, maybe a week or two before returning to work, their bleeding and exhaustion a burden they must hide. Do we see where the violence and madness is inborn in this society? I digress), I wasn’t anywhere near ready to go back to work. I was experiencing postpartum depression and anxiety and had to maintain regular calls, notes, and appointments between my doctor, my therapist, HR, the store, and myself to extend my leave. Given my mental state, caring for a colicky/sensitive baby round the clock and my general difficulty with executive functioning, I decided to officially quit upon the assurance by several managers that I would be re-hired when I was ready to return.
But that time came after several more months, and I was not welcomed back. Poor timing was the excuse given, and I nervously wanted to believe it. I tried again later to no avail. A third time even at a different location. The assistant managers (mates) were often being transferred to different stores, so the fact that some of my favorites had left my home store was a sign of the times. The store manager (captain, yes like a ship: crew, mates, captain) had clearly not been won over by me, the formality of our exchanges smacking me in the face with the truth. I don’t expect everyone to like me, I can be obnoxious, naive, emotional, blunt, forlorn. But I expect honesty, I give it to a fault, and it hurts deeply not to receive it. I have speculations about why I was shut out, but I won’t make them here.
Why talk about this now? Well, it’s been six years and I think I’m finally able to talk about it without sting. Rejection hurts. Love doesn’t end for me, it just gets stored on the shelf where I might admire it from time to time with a mix of tenderness and perhaps some sadness. I do accept, but I don’t forget. I still have semi-regular dreams at night where I’m at work there, often becoming anxious when I am turned against or welcomed in halfway, then barred from the inner circle. To me these reveal the nature and importance of the tribal sense of belonging and how far most humans have strayed from what is balanced in life.
In talking about this one past hurt (therefore setting it free) I hope to get closer to being able to heal from the struggles my new little family went through for years, mostly surrounding the limitations of my spouse due to chronic pain/injury. After a strong but hollow and rigid survival pattern kept in place for too long, I’m still figuring out how to fully enter the space that was miraculously created in the last year or so. It’s the work of our lives to not only manifest that which we long for, but to do good through it, become who we were always meant to be, and love fully, without constraints. To my friends at Trader Joe’s, I will always love you. To those that would smirk at my pain, I forgive you. And to those that still search for love, I wish you never to stop.
Valerie,
This isn't a little pain, this is about the loss of community, regardless of how it is configured. It illustrates to me how social structures that should have some sort of permanence are in a constantly morphing or vanishing state.
So many people are experiencing this kind of loss, but few are able to articulate it so well. Thank you.