I’m in a perpetual state of emotional angst. It’s the new me. I can’t find my old self and wonder if she didn’t first disappear outside the hardware store.

“Need help?” He was young, dark-eyed and hovering alongside large bags of mulch and fertilizer. I was walking by with my few items and a receipt dangling from my hand. I had opted to exit bag-less.

“I didn’t know if it was a ticket and you needed something loaded into your vehicle,” he smiled.

“I’m good,” I said as I brushed past and kept walking. Where’s your mask?

I suddenly realized I’d mumbled those words out loud, but doubted he’d heard. Under normal circumstances, I would have given him a big smile (now hidden behind my own mask) and thanked him regardless. But his youthful ignorance was now annoying, and it chiseled a new notch in my patience.

An hour later it was the woman jogging her way around the lake toward me. Mindful of the 6-foot social-distancing directive, I walked the dog against the flow of traffic, following the unspoken rules of the road. (Actually, they’re listed on a sign in the parking lot.)

I kept waiting for her to move over. She didn’t. At the last second, I veered out into the road before her mask-less face mowed me down.

I turned, not sure what to do. The old me would have relinquished my position even before she came into focus and then shrugged off her poor behavior. Not now. “It was the three of us for the price of her. Can you believe it?”

My husband, who was right behind me, shook his head, more at me.

I resumed walking, leaving a little more of my old self on the side of the road.

The airwaves are flooded with information daily about the virus. I’m way past needing convincing. I know the numbers, the risks and the untenable state of our country.

So when I entered the grocery store in the center of town, having wheeled in the cart someone had left in the middle of a parking space, which I had to wipe down, I was further irritated. There was a mask-less mother with three children at the fish counter. She was carrying on a lively conversation with the employee. Another woman and youngster fell in behind, waiting their turn. They, too, were unmasked.

I decided to pass on the fish.

As I wheeled my cart away, I glanced back at the employee on the other side of the glass case. Did he notice their lack of masks, too? Was he upset that he had no choice but to take their orders and make small talk, forced to share the invisible virus they might have offered up?

I wondered what the excuse was for the older man, the one I kept running into as though we shared the same grocery list. What about the young couple with their newborn swaddled in the carrier seat? Were they too busy as they navigated parenthood for the first time? But wouldn’t new parents, more than anyone, want to keep their newest family member safe?

Later, I drove through a quaint downtown in New Hampshire. As the flags staked on lawns waved at me in the soft afternoon breeze, my sadness grew. In another day, our country would be celebrating its independence. I no longer felt the deep connection and pride I’ve felt for many years on July 4th. I’m living in a town that has long welcomed people from outside its borders to share its forested hillsides and crystal ponds and lakes. Now I eye them with suspicion, fearful that they’ll make us less vigilant, or worse, leave the virus behind.

Every day I struggle to understand how our country could become so divided. Our deepest fissures are now exposed and growing, with swells of injustice bubbling and seeping out. Maybe it was a good thing, to uncover what’s ailing us. But it also lays bare our indifference. Any effort to move us forward is blurred.

The Greatest Generation purportedly provided us examples of sacrifice without complaint. Their resiliency seems to have vanished, leaving new generations who resist the smallest inconvenience, who can’t make the effort to protect a neighbor or loved one, who can’t wear a simple mask.

Lyn Ujlaky lives in Thetford.