It's Always Something

Morning will come too soon, but I'm wondering if it's normal to be giddy for ten straight minutes after the shop clerk strikes up a conversation with you about a movie you're buying two copies of as gifts. I mean, he was super attractive and today was the first time I'd ever seen him smile, but still?

Am I maladjusted at 28 because I turn into a giddy teen girl over the cute guy smiling at me and striking up a conversation? Usually guys are just polite to me or ignore me. Maybe I'm just really out of practice. 

Maybe the only thing that's wrong with me is that I'm wondering if something's wrong with me...

Particles

As usual, I should be asleep, but I'm not. Instead, I'm vaguely thinking about a guy I'm developing a friendship with, my new training tomorrow, money, and calculating how much sleep I'll get tonight based on how soon I can convince myself to sleep. 

I met this guy recently, and didn't think much about him at the time because work has pretty close to consumed my life. But the past couple days I've actually gotten to spend a little more time getting to know him. He seems kind, funny, and like he's actually focused on you entirely when you speak out of actual interest. I think I kinda like him. That alone seems odd because it's been quite some time since I felt any affection or interest towards anyone. This may pass. Maybe I'll find out he kicks puppies or hates pie and infants, but he may turn out to be a good guy. 

Will anything happen? Probably not. I'm not trying to be pessimistic just realistic. He could be in a serious relationship or not find my remotely attractive or he could be way too young for me (he's got a hard to determine age face). I won't get to see him often because we don't run into each other much, but it's something to look forward to. :)

Soul Assassin

I am awake. This is not a good thing. In less than 6&1/2 hrs I need to wake up so I can walk to work. I am tired, but I'm still wired from running the kitchen tonight at work. I was told it went alright, and we did get everything done, but we were 15 minutes late leaving and I spilled a good portion of a mop bucket on the floor adding to our lateness. Sure that wasn't a lot, but considering I took one less than 15 minute break and didn't even have to make all 3 of my entrées ... I still don't feel great about running the kitchen. I don't cook again until next Friday, so maybe I'll forget how weird tonight was by then. 

Maybe I'm just not meant to be in charge. I really like being someone floating in the background. It just seems to be so much better for everyone when I'm not center stage. 

The funny thing about this is that Kim, the normal night cook, told me I need to be confident. That's what she wants for me in the job. For me to be confident. I realize she means that she wants me to feel certain in the job and feel good about what I'm doing, but I could really use real confidence. 

I just feel so ill at ease. Can I do this job? Can I remember all these different stations? Can I remember the dang pan sizes? Will I actually make enough? 

Can I do this?

I haven't felt confident in ages. I loved working in the Pharmacy because after they trained me I felt like I could always get whatever they needed done and I was fantastic at remembering everything. Before that I loved Kable. I was one of the fastest people they had on staff and they kept asking me to learn new little things so I could be more involved with the job. I miss feeling like I have bearings and am actually competent at my job. 

I guess I'm just looking for something to show me I'm where I'm needed so that I don't have to feel like I'm needlessly complicating everyone around me's jobs. Or just lives in general. 

I just want to be able to say: this is my place. This is my path. I belong here. This is right. 

I am not there yet. 

I am A-Changin'

Some days I look around at my life and I am just proud that I'm still moving. I haven't given in to the doubt or confusion of it all. Nope. Instead, I'm still waking up and finding a reason to get out of bed. 

I am not perfect. I am not even sure that I'm good, but I'm trying. I was just reading a note I wrote to myself nearly a year ago about a pair of great dreams I had. Reading them felt foreign. I remembered having the dreams and how much I had hoped they were a sign of something new and changing on the horizon, but nothing changed. 

I take it back. Everything has changed. I moved home, I had to give up a plan to return to school and the future I had been trying so hard to build because I was working with and believing in someone who couldn't seem to come through for me in anything. I've started another job, but I've realized, just from that note, how much I've changed. 

God only knows what will come next, but I'll keep trying to build a life for myself. If that set of dreams ever come back to me, maybe I'll have help building my life, but in the meantime, I'll carry on alone. 

Life really is changing. I'm changing. I may accept this yet. 

Would You Know Me Without the Mask?

There's nothing quite so soul-emptying as trying to convey something to someone else and having them suddenly realize the version of you they have always thought was you is, in fact, only a hidden door which you just opened up and now suddenly they find themselves faced with part of you that makes them wonder if, perhaps, you're actually a little crazy.

Ha.

Yes.  I am crazy.  At least a little.  I tend to get fixated on an idea or concept that fascinates me and need to talk to someone about it.  I just need someone I trust to bring up weird stuff with and have them actually respond somehow.

Do you have any idea how hard that is to do?  Do you have any idea how many texts, emails, letters, notes I will never send?  Do you have any idea how hard it is to be locked up inside yourself because you are pretty sure that if people really knew who you were or what interested you or lit you up or confused you that they would think you're joking or crazy or maybe they'd decide they didn't want to know you?

You probably do.  Because, if we're being honest, we're all pretty good at hiding who we are or what we think or feel depending on what we want people to think of us.  It's tiring isn't it?

I just want to sleep.


Favorite things of this very moment (8:48 PM CST):

• "So At Last" by Butch Walker
• A Natural History of Love by Diane Ackerman (I also kinda hate this book)
• Knowing tomorrow will actually start the hiring process for Pinecrest and that I should, barring incident, have a real job soon
• My fan
• Unsweetened ice tea in an old QT cup (nice to have bits from all my homes and travels in one place)
• The feeling of success from making eggplant Parmesan for the first time ever this evening 

I Need Sleep. I Need Sleep. I Need Sleep.

I need sleep.  I find myself repeating that phrase.  I need sleep.

And it's true - I do need sleep, but at the same time, I don't want to.  I keep thinking of this week as the last week during which I can get away with going to bed late and sleeping in.  This isn't a bad thing because it will mean that I have successfully gotten the job at Pinecrest, but it does mean rearranging my sleep schedule which seems like a strange joke since my body and brain have rarely agreed on when I should been sleeping in years.  I'm one of those great people that suffers from insomnia and depression intermittently, and this makes sleep a hilarious challenge at times.  My big hope is that work will make me so tired that I will just crash.  If it doesn't work that way, I'll end up burning out quick.  It will work.  It will be fine.  I'll learn to sleep.  Or at least fake it enough that I'll be alright.

Fake it till you feel it, right?

My meeting to go over the offer for the job is Wednesday morning.  Lots of people know about this.  I probably sound goofy to a lot of them because I keep putting the "if" in front of getting hired.  I keep saying things about how "as long as" this and this and this work out...I'll have a job.  People keep saying things like "You clearly have been hired" or "As soon as I heard I knew you'd have the job" or simply congratulating me.  While this is all great and I am pretty sure I will have the job, I am struggling to feel like it is mine yet.  This isn't even a huge fancy job.  It's just a needed job, and I'm happy to do it.  I just really don't want to be completely excited about it, and then to have something fall through.  That could be overly pessimistic, but if you'd lived my life for the past couple years you'd feel this way too.

It makes me feel a little insane to be afraid of being excited.  I don't want to be in this position in my life where I don't trust life to work out even if everything points to things going smoothly, but I am.  In the past 8 years or so rejection, failure, disappointment, and unexpected things always seem to show up.  This isn't to say everything has been bad.  Sometimes the rejection has cleared a path for something better or the failure has caused change or the disappointment has helped me learn lessons, but all of these things hurt at some point.  

I guess right now I'm just incredibly wounded and incredibly vulnerable.  I'm just not willing to believe fully that this good thing, this job, will really be mine until it is completely settled.

So here I am waiting.

Siiiiiigh.

Good things come to those who wait though, right?

Favorite things of this very moment (12:44 AM CST):

• Making a new mix for a good friend
• Butch Walker singing me to sleep and telling me to "think about the good things no matter what they say"
• New yoga/sweat pants while crazy soft lining
• Having removed a certain small black & white kitten who shall remain nameless (hint: starts with "M" and ends with "ulligan") from its spot under the bed where said mini monster was apparently trying to use the bed as a scratching post
• Cookbooks with eggplant recipes I'll finally have an excuse to try since we've been given eggplant
• The box sitting next to my bed with all kinds of wonderful gifts from Nik (I swear these boxes are always like Christmas)

Needed: Real Hobbies

I miss feeling.

For the past few months I've been trying to decide if I wasn't feeling anything for anyone because I was depressed or if it was just because there is no one to care for or hope for.  To tell the truth, I am still not sure of the answer.  I'm leaning towards the second, but sadly that always circles right back around to the first.

It's been a couple years since I felt something was right and that I was certain.  Everything inside of me would tangle and dance and scream and explode with joy and anguish and hope.  How I miss that.  I guess the reality is that I miss the certainty.  I miss believing in something.

Nights like tonight I wonder if I'm destined to do this life alone, and if I am, I wish I could come to terms with that and keep going.

I need real hobbies.  Maybe I'll take up gardening like Nick Miller...Ha.

Favorite things of this very moment (11:26 pm CST):

• John Mayer
• NetFlix
• My Amazon Wishlist
• New & old books newly purchased to read
• Cooler weather
• Forrest's willingness to kill the far too large for comfort spider that showed up in my room this evening with a plastic ninja sword because I hadn't been able to kill it with a Kleenex box and was refusing to get off my bed after watching it crawl under my dresser (seriously though...where the heck did that monster come from?!)
• My new job on the horizon
• Good things truly being on the way