Thank You, Next

Real talk.  Fruit flies.  Where do they come from?  It makes me crazy.  I’m not a dirty person.  I keep a pretty clean ship and then I’ll be reading before I go to bed and one just whizzes by and it’s like EXCUSE ME, SIR?!  And once you seen one, you can’t just go back to living your life because now there’s a winged imposter in your apartment.  Let’s not forget the time my friends were in town and woke up to me trying to kill a cockroach with a butcher’s knife at 3 in the morning.  It seemed like a brilliant idea at the time, don’t ask.  So anyways, I did the research.  Fruit flies can lay hundred of eggs that hatch in mere HOURS.  ew.  They are a menace and they must be stopped.  These are the things that keep me up at night.  Meanwhile, I just closed an eight year chapter of my life and I’d be lying if I said it didn’t feel crazy amazing….and absolutely horrifying.

My path has never been cookie cutter.  I’m a self-admitted weirdo.  Both hands up.  Anyone who knows me will agree.  I’m a rare bird for sure.  Being a creative, I’ve always been a little different.  I can’t tell you how many times I was told to do something else with my life…anything else.  Of course, you know me – as soon as someone tells me to do something, I’m not going to do it.  Stubborn lady I am.  In college when most people were there studying business or law, I was busy in class acting like a cat.  #fact  I’ve been an entertainer since I was a little girl – nothing else brings me more joy.  I used to organize after-dinner shows as if my parents were hosting a dinner theater when really they were raising a dramatic monster.  I’ve been asked about backup plans for years and while that might be the savvy thing to have, my heart was never into it.

I have paid my bills as a server for almost 20 years.  Ironically, as an artist, food and beverage has been my stability.  This has not only led me to believe that every single person on this planet should take a mandatory class on etiquette and manners and behavior in public in general but it’s granted me the life I live.  I facetimed my mom yesterday before my last shift and when she asked me how I was feeling I burst into tears.  And then, through all of my tears, I proceeded to blubber, “I don’t even know why I’m crying, I hate that place.”  And this, ladies and gentlemen, is what you call Stockholm Syndrome.  When you become so accustomed to something in your life, you begin to depend on it and build your life around it – we do it all the time.  Jobs, relationships, money, blah blah blah – whether it’s healthy or good for you or has your best interest at heart doesn’t matter because it’s your constant, it’s what you know.  And humans love going back to what they know.

In the middle of opening a bottle of wine on my second to last day, my wine key legit broke in half and fell into a woman’s salad.  If that isn’t a sign, I don’t know what is.  It’s quite amazing what you learn as a server.  You mostly learn that people are assholes, which is a children’s book I’d like to write.  Although I will say, there are nice people out there.  There are people who lie about allergies, people with misguided expectations, people who think sunshine comes out of their ass, people who were born and raised on a silver platter so high in the sky they don’t understand the concept of time, people who think I control mother nature, people who like to be in public and pretend they aren’t, people who think being able to remember an order without writing it down is some kind of marvel only written about in superhero comics, people who like to wave…like a lot, people who believe you have literally nothing else going on in your life, people who simply will never be pleased in any capacity of their life, I mean the list goes on and on.

As I enter the doors of this new adventure, my friend told me to lean into it and let the universe have my back.  Immediately I thought of a trust fall with gravity which never ends well.  But I have a sneaky suspicion this might be my favorite chapter yet.  If you love something, if you crave something, if you can’t imagine doing anything else – give it time.  Time, she is fickle, but will always carry you towards something else and you have to believe that where you’re being taken is going to be better than where you’ve been.  Bring me that horizon.  I am and will always be forever grateful for the family I found along the way and this isn’t to say that I’ll never work in f&b again – I have no idea what my future holds.  I’m a real feather in the wind these days.  But I will say this for now:  Thank you, next.  Cheers.