It's Okay If You're Bad at Survival
Let's share our fails.
It was 11 pm.
There were only a few jars of pasta sauce left, a can or two of beans here and there, among the rows and rows of empty shelves.
I held two jars in my hand, wondering what was more important, getting what my family needed, or leaving something for someone else. That’s when a woman walked past me with her shopping cart, shaking her head.
“I’m just trying to get one week of groceries,” she said.
I don’t know if she was passing judgment on me or commiserating. When you’re on the spectrum, that’s kind of how life goes.
So, I put one jar back.
The shortages continued, but that’s when I started going for the dry goods—the stuff left behind that nobody else seemed to want. We managed. For many of us, those months in 2020 when you couldn’t even find rubbing alcohol were a wakeup call about how fragile our grids and supply chains were.
When strangers look at me, they see a fragile creature. They don’t see a marathon runner who got up at 6 am on Saturdays and ran 10 miles in negat…