You shall no longer take things at second or third hand,
nor look through the eyes of the dead, nor feed on the spectres in books,
You shall not look through my eyes either, nor take things from me,
You shall listen to all sides and filter them from your self. – “Song of Myself,” Walt Whitman
I have this memory of sitting in the dining hall my freshman year of college. I remember noticing how many kids ate cereal at dinner. It felt like an act of rebellion, like an expression of their newfound independence: Our mothers weren’t looking over our shoulders anymore–you could eat whatever you want, whenever you want. I never ate cereal at dinner my freshman year, or any other year of college.
For almost ten years I made a conscious effort to pursue independence. But you can’t consciously pursue independence. You can only achieve it when you’re ready to–it can’t be forced. All my attempts to force it only amounted to small steps forward.
I’ve always seen myself, and everything around me, through someone else’s eyes, typically my parents’. The parental influence is immeasurable–they teach us everything: how to eat, how to drive, how to care for ourselves, how to think about the world, what to study in college, what careers are “acceptable,” how to register to vote and what party to register with…
I was taught that Democrats are Liberal, Progressive, the “right” party.
I was taught that, as a petite girl, I should wear heels to appear “taller,” to appear “leaner.”
I was taught to wear makeup to be “attractive.”
It’s only now that I will wear sandals in public. Now I will go without makeup. Now I reconsider being a registered Democrat. Now I question my voting history. Now I question the supposed American tenets of freedom, equality and justice. Now I question my perspective on everything I ever believed to be real. Now I see through my own eyes.
I feel a little lost in all of this. Inspired, but lost nonetheless. But I accept it, because feeling a little lost makes sense in this context. It’s scary. Not the I-Want-To-Turn-Back Scary, but the I’m-Not-Sure-What-I-Will-Look-Like-Tomorrow Scary. And it’s exciting. Not the I-Want-To-Stay-Out-Til-Four-In-The-Morning Exciting, but the I’m-Seeing-With-My-Eyes-For-The-First-Time Exciting.
My senior year of high school, we used to ditch during lunch and drive to the beach. It was always beautiful. We’d blast music all the way and stop at Starbucks for iced coffee. It felt like pure freedom.
Every now and then, I revisit these pleasant memories and think fondly on high school days. It’s amazing how positive everything seems in retrospect. In the actual moment, nothing felt right. Like many teenagers, I never felt that I fit. I agonized over my outfits every morning. I suffered from extreme insecurities and the plaguing notion that I just wasn’t desirable. The boys never found me attractive. I was never the one they wanted — a typical, self-deprecating, teenager train-of-thought.
My freshman year of college, I cried myself to sleep every night of the first week. I began to realize that, if I thought high school was bad, I had no idea what was coming to me in college. I wondered if I would ever be happy. Even during my second quarter, when I got my job at the coffeehouse and subsequently made a wide variety of friends whose company I actually enjoyed, I was still followed by my insecurities, by the belief that I just wasn’t wanted, romantically or platonically.
Sometime, after therapy, after medication, after nutrition-counseling, I started to find my sense of balance. I started to feel okay. The balance wavered, particularly during my junior year abroad in Chile, and then, again, after graduation. I’ve come to believe that it’s pretty natural to feel unsettled and a bit insecure when you’re in a new environment, under new circumstances.
Yet, years later, I moved to a small town in which the only person I knew was my own mother — not someone I could rely on for social activities. I never felt uncomfortable here. I never felt like I had lost my footing. Even during my debaucheries and fairly self-destructive “adventures,” I felt balanced. I felt like I was me even when I wasn’t necessarily acting like me.
And now, everything in the past has a beautiful ray of light on it. Every horrible feeling has dissolved. Every discomfort and period of depression seems to have melted into some hidden place in the back of my mind, where I can hardly even feel its presence. I know that I was once depressed. I know that I once thought more about food and what I ate than anything else. I know that I once preferred to hole up in my house, in comfortable clothes, and watch a movie. I know that I once chose to drink cheap red wine from Trader Joe’s by myself on the weekends and clean my kitchen with music blasting. I know that, in high school, I never “fit.” But it’s as if you can’t think about those things any more. It’s as if, at some point in your life, you have to digest it and then, to a certain extent, you have to let it all go.
So here I am, reminiscing in my own mind about the many days of senior year that we ditched class and took PCH to Malibu for iced coffee.
I said, in a recent post, “Like every thing else I do in my life, eventually, in some sense, I find a way to miss it.” This is the proof. This is the evidence. These are [some of] the memories I currently idolize and rewrite in my mind.
Isn’t it amazing how easy it is to miss something that you know isn’t very good for you in the first place?
Sometimes, I miss waiting tables. Yes, after all the complaining, the bitching and moaning about what a pain in the ass that job was, I kind of miss it.
I miss the pace of it all. Constant movement. Constant interaction with other people.
I miss the late hours. Since I stopped working in a restaurant, I’ve been in bed well before midnight on a regular basis. However, I somehow find myself missing the torture of staying on my feet until the last customer leaves.
I miss the few times in which I actually got a table I enjoyed serving. The ones who bought that one bottle of wine I always liked, ordered everything I recommended and really enjoyed themselves. The ones who know how to dine.
I miss speaking Spanish. Even since returning to school, and taking a class taught in Spanish, I still don’t feel like I’m speaking the language as often as I would like.
I miss the days when I felt carefree with my peers.
I’m not saying that I want the job back, or that I’m interested in waiting tables again. Like every thing else I do in my life, eventually, in some sense, I find a way to miss it.
Last night was the culmination of my “career” as your friendly neighborhood server.
I will no longer dress in a white, button-down, collared shirt and tie. I will no longer polish silverware. I will no longer ask if ice water or bottled is preferred. I will no longer watch as everyone around me sips their wonderful red wine or sangria. Fuck sangria.
Part of me can’t believe that, in all likelihood, I will never work in another restaurant again. The service industry has been my life since freshman year. That’s eight years of pulling espresso. That’s eight years of steaming soy milk. That’s eight years of clearing plates.
On my way to the restaurant yesterday, I was (as expected) overcome with a sense of nostalgia. I knew it would hit at some point — I used to love this job. It’s always a great social outlet, and the nights usually end with free alcohol. Somewhere along the line though, I fell out of love. I found myself stuck in a job that made me increasingly bitter.
I can’t waste any more time waiting tables — it keeps me from making progress. I need to focus on what I want to do, the type of person I want to be. So that the next time my plane is landing at LAX, I am not reminding myself that I was supposed to be a magazine columnist at age 26, or that I was supposed to have a great little loft apartment in Manhattan and a job at Amnesty International. It all feels like mere dreams, but it can be real, if I just leave behind my going-nowhere job and do.
It was not until yesterday that I understood Schmutzie’s (of Five Star Friday fame) strange, numerical and poetic posts. They are a part of the x365 blog movement in which “people all over the world are making a list of 365 people they’ve met during the course of their lives – people who left an impression and whose name they remember – then they’re randomly writing a set number of words about someone on their list. They’re doing this once a day – for a year.”
The idea not only appeals to me, it inspires me.
I’m not ready to commit to such an endeavor, but I’m certainly intrigued to read others.
Read how it began here and how to begin a list of your own, here.
