Goodbye Fiesta Mall: The World is Changing
Remembering the Importance of Adjusting to Those Many Changes
I grew up here in Arizona, and Fiesta Mall was a landmark in the community. For those of you who may not be familiar with Fiesta Mall, it used to be a large mall where that big empty lot is now on the southwest corner of Alma School Road and Southern Avenue. For many people, it was a place with many memories, maybe spending time with loved ones at the food court, or giggling while shopping around, giving us a place to walk around and spend time with others.
So, what happened to it? Over time, as shopping in-person became less and less popular, stores chose to set up in other malls, and people had less reason to visit, Fiesta Mall faded away. This led to the area becoming a beacon for more suspicious activities to take place, which made a lot of people feel less safe going there, making the mall more and more deserted. Eventually, they had to close their doors because people weren’t visiting and spending money, and so eventually the mall itself was demolished.
A part of me is sad to see it leave. Another part of me understands what happened and is open to the change. I am eager to see what will be built there now. As I sit and think about it, I feel like that Fiesta Mall represents what I have sometimes seen happen within a person after a setback.
Life inherently comes with challenges. Changes are way that the world works, and often change is challenging. In people, these changes can look like a loved one passing away, being laid off from a job, getting a chronic illness, or even children growing up and moving away from home. Like how Fiesta Mall struggled with society’s transition to less in-person shopping, sometimes people have trouble transitioning with changes in their life.
When we don’t adapt to changes, a lot of times, stressors start to snowball. In Fiesta Mall, this led to less people walking through their stores and eventually sketchy stuff starting to take place there, which made their issue with getting people to go there worse. In people, this can look like struggling to keep their job because they are stressed, pulling away from people and losing friends when they are depressed, anger being misdirected onto loved ones, and shame being covered up with substance abuse or self-harm.
This is what therapy often helps with: adjusting to changes or dealing with the impacts of not adjusting for a while. Kind of like with Fiesta Mall, it isn’t always possible to go back to the life you had before. That isn’t hopeless though. Sometimes it can be helpful to start fresh to make room for something new.
