Someone to Listen

If I were to say that I have a lot going on in my life in this moment and that a lot of things are changing for me... Well that might just be an understatement. Changing might not be the right word for it, though. It's more that my life is progressing. Every day I learn more and more about the person I ideally want to be, the person I am now, and the person I will eventually become.

My day today went something like this: I woke up early, I stayed in bed convincing myself that I could put off getting ready for another hour, I went to school where I discussed the very real possibilities for my future career, I came home to an empty house and made myself lunch, got ready for work, and then spent the next seven hours at Zupas, serving customers and training for my new position.

All in all, this day does not sound that much different from the days I had a year ago. If you look simply at the routine, it might be considered exactly the same as last year, the same as Boondocks. A day full of classes and work and coworkers. The reality of it all, though, is so different. I don't really know if I have really made my situation better for myself, or if I have really just changed myself and my perspective on life. Either way, I am really glad to be where I am right now.

Still, I came home from work tonight, my first official night training to be a shift lead at work, to find that every car was in the driveway. That alone was awesome because it meant that every person in my family was home. The idea is really exciting because my family does not get to spend much time together these days. We are all moving into our own lives and we have crazy schedules. So coming home to see that every car was in the driveway was good. Tuesday nights usually mean coming home and spending some time with my parents, talking to my sisters as they trickle home from work and other activities. Usually Tuesday nights are one of the best parts of my week. Tonight I came in to the house to find the everybody was home, but everyone was already in bed.

I am left feeling like so much has happened today and I just want to talk to someone about it. I mean, there is so much happening in my life. I have discovered what I want to do and I am talking to people about how to make that happen. Three years from now I could be mere weeks away from completing my masters degree. I could be nearly into a career doing counseling and I am so excited for that. Closer than that, though, is my promotion that I began training for tonight.

My boss showed me so many different things that I have to be able to remember tonight. I already feel like everything is just pouring out of my brain by the moment. I went into this really confidently. I thought my experience from the last seven months was enough to make this training really easy for me. There is just so much to remember, though. There are so many different buttons to push and things to count. I can handle the actual leading of the shift. I know how to work with employees. Working with money and orders and drawers is different, though. That has nothing to do with people. Nothing to do with the things that I am good at. I will understand it all eventually... But tonight... There was just so much to learn.

Tonight I just wanted to tell all of that to someone. I just wanted to share my excitement for my future and my anxieties about my job. I just wanted to tell someone about it.

So instead I am writing it on my blog. Because over the past five years, when there has not been anyone to listen to me when I wanted to talk this blog has been where I go.

Today was awesome. I am so excited for my future. I actually enjoy my job. I have some of the best friends on the planet and my relationships with my family have never been stronger. That's a lot, isn't it? Can you blame me for wanting someone to talk to about all of that?

I so love my life.

An Unforgettable Night

But there will come a time, you'll see, with no more tears.

And love will not break your heart, but dismiss your fears.

Get over your hill and see what you find there,

With Grace in your heart and flowers in your hair.

- "After the Storm" by Mumford & Sons

I'm sharing these lyrics tonight largely because I just got back from seeing M&S in concert. However, I have loved these lyrics since I first heard them (less than six months ago.) They mean a lot to me because I have had some moments in my life where I just felt like there was no way and no reason for me to get through all the rough patches. These lyrics are hope. They are the light at the end of the tunnel. These lyrics are what I wish I could tell my fourteen and fifteen and sixteen year old self because I think they hold a powerful lesson. Not that I would have listened, but still.

I plan to write a very lengthy and detailed post about my first concert at some point tomorrow. It is an experience that I need on paper or online for the rest of my life. It is almost 2 AM, though, and I just got home. So for tonight, I am going to bed.

I leave you with a few lines from my favorite song (which I screamed the entirety of at the top of my lungs:)

It seems that all my bridges have been burned,

But you say that's exactly how this Grace thing works.

It's not the long walk home that will change this heart,

But the welcome I receive with the restart.

- "Roll Away Your Stone" by Mumford & Sons

Update

I don't even know if anyone keeps up with this blog anymore, but if you do you've probably noticed that my posts have been few and far between lately. I'm not going to say that I don't have time because I could make time if I really had something I needed to say. However, I've been much to busy living my life lately to spend hours online writing about it. I think I spent last year waiting for something to happen that would bring me out of the funk that I had been in since about half way through senior year. I didn't really realize that I would have to be the one to make something happen and move my life onto a more positive path. I didn't realize that, and yet I made the move eventually anyway.

I have never been an extremely social person. All my life, if I needed someone to hang out with or someone to talk to, I always had my gaggle of sisters to turn to. I wanted friends, but I wasn't really sure how to make them. Until recently, the last time I made a friend on my own and not through mutual friends was in 7th grade.  Like I said, I'm not a social person. If you put me in a room with a ton of strangers, I'm not likely to strike up conversation. It takes a lot of effort for me to be that outgoing, but it's something that I've always thought I needed to work. So when I started at Zupas, I was absolutely determined to make some friends there. I just started talking. I tried to get to know everyone. At first, I thought that we would all make one very awesome, large group of friends. As we've all gotten to know each other more, though, we've formed our own groups and pairs.

It's been really interesting to see these groups evolve. My own group started out being fairly large and has narrowed itself down to three people (one of which doesn't work at Zupas.) The first time we got a group of us together after work was super awkward and the most fun I have had in months. We laughed our heads off at absolutely nothing and people who saw us probably thought we had been friends for a very long time instead of being coworkers who had only known each other for two weeks. After that, certain people seemed to get weeded out of the group. The process continued until it ended up just being me, Megan, and Ian. I love when you meet new people and they just absolutely click with you.

Anyway, Megan and Ian are the type of friends that I always wanted in high school (which is slightly ironic, considering Ian and I were friends in high school.) We make plans all the time. We can sit talking to each other until three in the morning. We talk about the tv shows and music we like as well as the bigger, more important things in our lives. I can truly be myself with them in a way that I couldn't be with any of my friends in the past.

And I'm writing all of this because I've been confined to my couch for the past few days. See, I've had a couple of lumps on my left foot for years. I haven't really paid attention to them, but ever since I've been working more the lumps have been getting larger and have been hurting more. My mom has been telling me to get them looked at for such a long time and finally convinced me two weeks ago. I went to the doctor and was referred to a podiatrist. I had my mom come with me because I have been to the doctor exactly two times in the past fifteen years before this month. I was nervous, but Carley came as well and kept me distracted. The podiatrist said that it was most likely two different cysts that they could remove with two small incisions.

I had the surgery on Tuesday. I was ridiculously nervous. I've never even had an iv before, let alone a surgery. It was all a lot simpler than I thought it would be, though. The nurse got the iv in easily, the anesthesiologist brought me back to the OR and then they hooked me up to monitors and got the medicine started. I vaguely remember them putting the anesthetic into my foot. I remember that hurt, but I don't remember the pain. One minute I was listening to the beeping of the monitors and the next moment they were waking me up, telling me I was done. I remember saying "Seriously?" because I couldn't believe it was already over. The doctor told my mom that I was smiling and had everyone laughing when I woke up, though, so something more must have happened.

The doctor also told my mom that it was worse than they thought. Instead of being two cysts, there was only one large cyst that was attached to my tendons. They tried to get to the source, but it is likely that it will come back. Anyway, instead of two small incisions, I have one 3 1/2 inch incision on my foot. I'm not supposed to be walking on it and I am therefore stuck on the couch. A while ago, I would have loved the idea of not having to do anything or go to work or get off of the couch at all. Now, though, it is driving me nuts to just sit here. I want to hang out with my friends and see my work peeps and play cards with my sisters at the kitchen table. So it's driving me nuts to sit here, but that's ok. Soon enough I will be out and about once again. :D

True Happiness

I just wanted to write a quick update since it's been over a month since I was last on here. In that time, I've gotten a new job, quit my old job, reconnected with my best friend, stopped trying so hard to connect with another friend, gained so many new friends, and become a much happier person because of all of that. Everything just seems to be going my way right now and I absolutely love it.

The greatest part of it all? Being happy has helped me fix my relationship with one of my favorite people on the planet. I think back on all of the ways that I blamed her for our problems and I realize that my attitude really had such a huge part in it. We are so much closer these days and I love love love that we are spending time together.

Really, I don't think my life could get much better than this.

So This is What Happiness Feels Like

In the late summer of 2010, I was desperate to get a job. So desperate that in my flurry of applications and complaints about nothing happening, I ended up with two jobs. The first was just a summer gig; watching my cousin, Jack, who was three at time. My afternoons were spent watching Backyardigans and corralling my favorite little boy on the planet. Not long after I started that job, I was contacted about Boondocks. Before I knew what had happened, I had been hired. That was the beginning of journey.

For the rest of the summer, I was so busy training and working that I didn't babysit Jack as often. At first I was awkward and quiet around the kitchen. Now, just short of two years later, so much has changed. I am the one that is working in that having fun and goofing off when we're slow and I am the one that the newer people look to when we're busy. My confidence is not always strong, but I do feel a lot better about running that place than I ever would have that first summer. However, as things always seem to go in my life, just as I am getting really comfortable with my situation, things are moving again.

Looking back at this blog that I wrote in my first month at Boondocks, the words seem familiar. It's like a very good friend wrote them. I understand what they're saying and I remember being there. Still, I find myself laughing at everything I thought I knew back then versus everything that I know that I don't know now. The girl who wrote those words and the girl who is writing these right now are two very different people of similar backgrounds. Their values, their beliefs, their priorities... Everything is different. There is one difference that definitely stands out, though.

This girl. Right here, right now. She's happy.

It took today, my last leadership meeting at Boondocks, for me to realize just how... not me I've been for a long time. I was sitting at that table, looking around at the people who I've been working with for quite a while and saw what my mom has been telling me for months. Those people aren't good for me. No matter how much I have loved working at Boondocks at moments in the past, what I have ahead of me is so much better.

Last Tuesday, I received a call on my way to school. When I listened to the voice mail asking me to schedule an interview with Cafe Zupas I literally screamed. It's a good thing I was still in my car. I immediately called the guy back, but it wasn't until two days and five calls later that we actually managed to get in touch.

My interview was with the district manager. So far, he seems like an absolutely great guy whom I will love working with. We talked about everything from my goals in college and work to the differences between how Zupas and Boondocks run their kitchens. I expressed my love for cooking and my desire to work somewhere that will give me more guest interaction. It was the longest interview I have ever had.

At the end he set his pen down and said "I'm torn with you. Let me just tell you, I am going to hire you." I freaked at this point and I don't really remember what the specifics of the rest of our conversation were. He said that he didn't know whether he should hire me as a prep cook or a line server. He wanted my personality out front but I had expressed interest in cooking and the hours and pay were more what I was looking for.

After some discussion and negotiation we came to a compromise. I am officially a line server at Zupas and I cannot wait to begin working. The atmosphere there is going to be so much more positive and I am just so determined to make this the start of a happier and more productive me.

I will never forget the lessons that I learned while working for Boondocks. I have grown so much as a person since I started there and I have met quite a variety of people. Still, moving forward I am able to take all of those things that I learned and put them into action in a brand new environment.

Everything is looking up right now and I'm happier than I can remember being in a very long time. There are definitely good things coming up in my future.

<3