Moving to the Mall

To say I grew up in the Boise town square mall means I was there on the job sight as the foundation was laid and the huge metal beams were being set into place....I am not sure if I was actually allowed to be there but I was amazed by it all as my father and his father walked through the place talking about all kinds of details in the beginning structure. I was maybe 9 years old, looking down at my black shiny Sunday school shoes covered in construction site dust, my golden hair of perfectly created curls that my mother made bounce along with me. It was quiet for the Sunday afternoon everything was frozen in action and we walked through the grounds. My father explain "This is going to be 2 levels with an open courtyard at the center right about here..." I was sometimes paying attention to what he was saying and sometimes just starring at the big equipment all round me. When the grand opening came for the mall, it was all over the news and I saw big crowds of people and tons of cars on the TV screen. I watched in awe realizing that I had walked through the place before it was an actual building! It was something important for me to remember so naturally I did! Since my parents didn't like crowds, we didn't go. Now Halloween was the approaching holiday, my parents didn't like that day as well so it was the first time we as a young family went to the newly open mall. I was in awe by the whole place, the flashing signs of stores and music playing over head. The mall was a fun new place to shop safely out of the natural weather while not being bored in only one store! It was such a very clever idea I thought to myself on our first trip there on that fun Halloween day, (In facts for a few years every Halloween we spent it at the mall to avoid trick or treaters at our front door) 
I grew up in the mall, I really did. 
Was I lucky to have been born just as the American people became credit card hungry and delusional with need of thousands of products? Now I was among them, seeking the desires of nice things like everyone else only I GREW UP in this mess so I got to see it in a different light by the time I reached the age of 20. THE MALL where everything you buy makes you feel successful even though you are not.....I had to learn a very humbling experience all on my own and that isn't such a bad thing really. There are many layers to our society, the mall store windows display the kind of perfect life we all want but those store employees had to come in at four in the morning to setup the merchandise to catch your eye, the hours of business shoot out profit numbers that have to be reach in time to close with success, the more credit cards open that day the chances those profit desires were met as well as the consumer carrying new bags full of brand new sparkling things. I thought by having every department store credit card I could make it on my own in the world of the mall. That I had arrived in claiming that perfect life image from the sparkling shop windows. Didn't the mall promise happiness if you were wearing GAP and smelling like White diamonds? Wasn't the mall meant to cater to our every pleasure with Dairy Queen's ice cream cones and Brookstone's back massage chairs? There is the "cat and mouse" life behind the scenes of each shop in the mall. Profit goals pushed on every customer and clearance items to get rid of quickly, bossing minimum waged employees from up on high step stools to hanging a row of heavy new shirts up at the very same time maintaining a smile when a rude customer demands 50% off a brand new store item. This life and energy in a mall is to get what you can for yourself no matter if you are an employee or customer....I will always remember the day I changed, the day I sat on the bench in the middle of the mall watching these people moving all around me with those big bright sale signs slapped on the walls and windows as the overhead music played......I can't live this way anymore. THAT was the thought I had rolling over and over again inside of me, this was the new "Rat race" in our society, this moving to the mall for jobs, for shopping all in one place I just saw chaos. I sat there looking down at my feet again realizing I wasn't wearing my Sunday school shoes anymore, this building was now very well established over the decade. Instead I was wearing my new balance tennis shoes holding my starbucks coffee cup saying over and over again to myself with a calm happy smile "I can't live like this anymore."  Perhaps that is a natural thought we all have in the progression of our lives to change from what we have learned in our discovery of something else that is more important to us?  I was never the same after that day sitting on the mall bench by myself thinking deeply about everything I saw in front of me, this mall structure and endless consuming desires we all share and it never seems to come t an end. I was free from seeking such an image of success in the world's eyes.....I was truly relaxed and happy drinking my coffee knowing I won't buy into it anymore. I couldn't shop along side my mother in the same way after that of course, for I had stood in long lines at Christmas time, shared milkshakes with best friends to the hum of mall shoppers, tried on piles of clothes in those fitting rooms and rode the escalate for fun with my siblings, even meeting my Grandma for lunch ALL at that mall. I knew I was never  going to be the same person in consuming their life style standards. My mother got frustrated with me not wanting to buy anything even on sale. I was simply done with living like that, with growing up in the mall. I knew I had changed but the mall seemed to stay untouched, not everyone was going to understand my new thoughts on shopping.....but the simple fact was that I had moved out of the mall.

"Mmmoooooommmm, can Rebekah and I go on our own to get a milkshake?" I asked my mother from outside the dressing room in JCpennys. Mom was trying on jeans again and said "Okay BUT stay together like always....I'm almost done here and will meet you at the tables, I mean it STAY TOGETHER Debby." I smiled excitedly at my best friend since we were only 10 years old in this freshly painted mall, we went to look for new discovers while being on our own gave us a sense of Independence that we truly loved!