Why I’m Standing in This Aisle
There’s a specific kind of confusion that hits when you realize—mid-stride, mid-mission, mid-whatever you were doing—that you have absolutely no fucking idea why you’re standing where you’re standing.
Not lost. Not confused about directions. I know where the aisle is. I’m in the aisle. The aisle is very clear. What’s unclear is why.
This happens to me approximately four times a week. Sometimes more. I’ll be at home, walking from my bedroom to the kitchen with purpose, with intention, with the kind of determined energy that says “I know exactly what I’m doing.” And then I arrive. Kitchen. Standing. Blank.
Why am I here?
Was I getting water? Tea? A snack? Opening the fridge to stare at the same contents I stared at twenty minutes ago, hoping something new has appeared. (Spoiler: nothing new appears. This is a lie we tell ourselves.)
The worst part is that moment of knowing I knew a second ago. It’s not like I forgot before I left the bedroom. No. I had it. I had a reason. A solid, concrete reason that propelled me across the house with enough confidence that I didn’t need to repeat it to myself. And then, somewhere between Point A and Point B, the reason evaporated. Poof. Gone. Like it never existed.
I stand there. I think about this. I rewind. I try to reconstruct the logic chain that brought me here. Was I thirsty? Possibly. Am I thirsty now? I don’t know. I genuinely don’t know if I’m thirsty or if I invented thirst as an excuse to leave the room.
This is my life now.
And it gets better (worse?) at the grocery store.
There’s something about the grocery store that amplifies this phenomenon to nuclear levels. Maybe it’s the fluorescent lights. Maybe it’s the sheer number of choices that short-circuits my brain. Maybe I’m just getting older, and my memory is slowly divorcing itself from my body without telling me.
I’ll be walking toward the produce section. I have a list. I wrote a list. I’m holding the list. And yet, as I approach the tomatoes, I look down at my list and realize I can’t actually remember which aisle I was trying to get to. I stand there, physically present in produce, holding a piece of paper that clearly states what I need, and I’m experiencing a genuine disconnect between what my hands are holding and what my brain is processing.
The worst is when you walk into an aisle and just stand there. Completely still. Other people navigate around you with the kind of practiced grace that comes from knowing exactly what they want. They move with purpose. They have a mission. You? You’re a human obstacle. A monument to indecision. A living, breathing question mark in the frozen foods section.
And people know. They can tell. There’s a specific energy to “I forgot why I’m here” that’s completely different from “I’m comparing prices” or “I’m reading the label.” You’re not reading. You’re not comparing. You’re just… standing. Existing. Taking up space while your brain searches through files that no longer exist.
Sometimes I’ll be standing in an aisle, and I’ll catch my reflection in a glass door or a mirror, and I’ll see myself—just standing there, blank-faced, holding a basket I don’t remember picking up—and I’ll think: this is what confusion looks like. This is what the slow dissolution of short-term memory looks like in real time.
The Gen-X solution? Panic and buy something nearby anyway. Just grab whatever’s closest and pretend that was the plan. Shampoo? Sure, I probably needed shampoo. Canned corn? Why not. I’ll take it. My brain may be a sieve, but my consumer spending will make up for the neurological gaps.
Or—and this is my favourite strategy—I’ll just turn around and walk back out of the aisle as if I’ve completed my mission. As if I accomplished something. Maybe I’ll even nod to myself, like “good work, you got what you came for.” The audacity. The absolute confidence in my own delusion.
The really insane part? Sometimes I do remember. Mid-confusion, mid-standing, mid-blank stare, the reason will suddenly surface. And it’s never important. It’s never “oh right, I needed to buy a house” or “I came here for life-changing medication.”(Which I do, actually) It’s always something stupid like “I wanted to see if they had the fancy cheese” or “I needed to check the price of salsa.”
Was that worth losing five minutes of my life? Worth standing in this aisle like an idiot, blocking traffic, existing in a state of complete cognitive bewilderment? For fancy cheese?
Apparently, yes. Apparently, my brain thought that was urgent enough to propel me and by propel, I mean meander, across the store with the kind of determination usually reserved for actual emergencies.
This is the paradox that every menopausal Gen-Xer talks about. We spend our entire lives being told we’re running out of time. Do more, achieve more, maximize every second. And then your brain decides that the best use of your seconds is to send you on wild goose chases through your own kitchen for reasons unknown.
I’ve tried making lists. Didn’t work. I’ve tried saying things out loud—”Nicki, you’re going to the kitchen for water”—as if narrating my own life will somehow cement the information into my brain. Spoiler: it doesn’t.
I’ve tried walking back and retracing my steps, hoping the environment will jog my memory. Sometimes it works. Most times, I just end up wandering around my house like a ghost, haunting myself.
And the stores? Forget it. (Pun absolutely intended.)
The best I can do is accept this as the new normal. Accept that I will spend approximately 14% of my grocery shopping time standing in random aisles, completely blank, while other humans accomplish their missions around me. Accept that my kitchen is a mysterious location I frequently arrive at with no explanation.
Accept that somewhere in my Gen-X brain, there’s a crucial file that just… didn’t save.
And honestly? There’s something almost peaceful about it. In a world that demands constant purpose, constant direction, constant knowing—there’s a strange freedom in just standing in an aisle and accepting that you have absolutely no idea why.
Maybe I’m not lost. Maybe I’m just exploring without a destination.
Maybe the aisle found me.
And maybe—just maybe—that’s fine.
If anything I have confessed or created resonated, please let me know