Wild Little Hare

I’m exposing my soul to so many new experiences lately, and the chemical reaction has been much more melodic than I could have ever imagined.

I’ve fallen in love. I’m falling more and more as each day passes, and to be loved as much as I love, is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever felt. It’s strange to think we’ve known each other all along and had no idea we were so absolutely compatible with one another.

On the same note, I recently was mostly sober in the presence of my very drunk adorable boyfriend. The same situation in which I’ve previously deemed other guys 86’ed. Undateable. Don’t talk to me again.

We were across the bay and travelling via public transportation about 30 miles back to my house.  He was stumbly.  Belligerent with strangers and attracting a shit load of attention.

I was patient, and I was kind. Which is a reaction brand new to myself.

I’ve never felt so strongly in love yet also completely at peace with the decision I’ve made to finally allow myself to be loved, and love in return.

Today before work, I was feeling a little bit ungrateful about the job situation that I have. I was feeling slightly pretentious, and probably a bit overdramatic, about the fact that I now have to work on Saturday nights. I woke up at my babe’s house, 100 miles away from my own, and wanted nothing more than to lie in bed all day with him basking in our drunken odors lingering from the night before.

He made me coffee and put it in yet another travel mug to add to the ever-growing collection of his kitchenware in my backseat. I drove and drove and stopped for more coffee and drove some more until I crawled from the driver seat of my car, up the steps to my house and into my own bed.

By the time I got to work, I was feeling even more slow. I got there only to find that my coworker, who’s shift I was relieving, couldn’t find the time to replenish or restock anything that I would need for my brand new 8-hour shift of hosting and entertaining the cocktail drinkers of East Bay California.

Fucking rad.

I pissed people off. They asked me where the fuck their food was. They asked me why the fuck their drink was taking so long. And my god, do I need to ask someone else for a side of ranch? I broke a glass, dumped two drinks by accident and two people left without paying.

As I was printing my server reports for the night, my coworker asked me how I was feeling about this career choice.  “It’s shit,” I told him. “Nights like tonight make me think that it’s not worth it.”

And maybe it’s just because I’m used to a different presentation of stress. Maybe it’s just because I know how to handle a malfunctioning copy machine better than when the Pepsi machine runs out of syrup. Maybe it’s because I can better understand someone stressing the urgency of documents, better than I can understand someone stressing the urgency of their fucking flatbread.

I’m a firm believer that if it’s not making you happy, it’s not worth it.

And I cannot say that my part-time bartending job isn’t making me happy, because it for surely is. I can tell in the way that I speak to guests like they’re my friends. I can tell by the way I dance in the kitchen with the cooks, and play pranks on my coworkers.

After almost nine hours of running around, trying to meet other people’s made-up deadlines, I left out the back door with an apron pocket full of cash and a to-go box of freshly made (and free) food. I sunk into the driver seat of my car and smiled at my life. Aching feet and all.

Who gives a shit about missing a Saturday night ordering drinks instead of shaking them. Maybe it’s not what I’m used to, or maybe I’m just acting bougie. Being out of my comfort zone is helping me learn, it’s helping me grow, and for that…
I need to remember to stay thankful.

I’ve always struggled with the meaning of “home”.
They have all these phrases to help you identify what’s a house, what’s a home, what’s a family blah blah blah.

“Home is where the heart is.”  The most standard of them all.

I hate when people ask me where I’m from.

Like… Where was I born? Where did I grow up? Where do I belong? What do you mean, where am I “from”? I’m a product of everywhere I’ve been.

I usually just answer them that my family lives in Sacramento. Ah yes, they reply, Cap City. Everyone is familiar with the Capitol. This eliminates the confusion. Until of course, they ask for my phone number (area code first). Or ask where I went to college- do you mean like, where did I graduate?

My gypsy soul has taught me that I can make a home anywhere I go.
My gypsy soul has taught me to feel at home wherever I go.

Home isn’t a place at all.  Home is a feeling.

For one reason or another, probably one I’ll never figure out- I’ve always used my commute home as a milestone in life. My commute from work to home, from being out with friends, from coming home after holidays with my family.  It’s the extensive time in the car, carefully navigating to the address I currently call home, from wherever life had taken me that day.

I feel like such a lame ass always writing about the same thing but I’ve been so over-the-top thrilled with life the past year that I can’t help but to let my content state completely consume me.

I can’t call it dating, but I’ve been spending time recently with a guy I met a few years ago. Someone I met at work, como siempre.  Someone I always knew I had everything in common with, without actually realizing we really do have everything in common.

He would kill me if he knew I said we weren’t dating.

I hate that I fall in love with everyone I meet. And it’s not a terrible quality. It’s a terrible quality how quickly I fall out of love too.

Recently someone I care for told me without telling me, “I like you- but I’ll never love you.”

And it’s not the first time I’ve heard this, but every time I hear it, it hurts just like the first. I’m told I’m so amazing, but that it won’t ever actually amount to anything. And it’s true, I hurt everyone before they hurt me. I leave everyone before I’m the one that’s left, and it’s such an ugly quality but it’s basically the only one I’ve got.

So, I’m sitting in his car drinking a load of water because he won’t let me drive home within an hour after we stopped drinking. He’s telling me these things I haven’t heard in a long time, and he’s playing all my favorite songs without me having to name them all. And I’m looking into his beautiful eyes, and I so badly want to tell him that I love him, but I feel like such a hypocrite, because I don’t think I even know what love is.

The windmills on the Altamont Pass looked beautiful tonight and I couldn’t help but to catcall to the parked BART trains on 580. I can’t help but to fall into a whirlwind of euphoria at this beautiful life I wrote, to be exactly what I wished for.

So, who’s to tell me what I love or don’t love, what love is or what love isn’t. I pass the word out so freely to my friends and to my girls. Why don’t I pass it out as freely to the ones I see romantically?

Do I claim to not be in love because I’m not? Or because I’m too afraid to admit.

As a rare feeler of uneasy emotions, I try to absorb it up when I can. I try to feel my feelings to the fullest extent, soaking in each drop before they slip away.

It’s bitter because I kick myself when I’m down. I wallow in my temporary sadness, letting it sink in deep and make my bones heavy. Feeling for a short time, a darker filter on my own life and the world around me.

It’s sweet because it’s a revelation in my own mind that I don’t have to live with- simply just experience it as it passes. I felt that, and now I understand. It’s sweet because it’s easier to write when you ache. It’s easier to create a spectrum of visual thoughts when you feel like you might never see the sun again.

So, I eagerly take the bad with the good. The teaspoon of sadness with the loving warmth of sunshine.

If it weren’t for sour, I’d never know sweet.

Rejection leaves you wondering which parts of you are insufficient.

You can play back every joke, every story, every extra effort you ever made just to hear his laugh one more time.  Which parts of my affection weren’t appealing?

It’s been a while since I’ve felt anything, so I guess it feels like the first time all over again.
Maybe I’m whining a little more than I should be for someone who doesn’t even believe in monogamy anyway.

They say life is about perspective. We’re all looking at the same picture, just from a different angle. The same goal seen a million different ways.

I guess it’s the first time I’m seeing the playing field from this corner…
And this game sort of sucks.

I’ve learned so much about myself recently. I feel like a brand new person every day. It’s hard to keep up with the revolving door of thoughts and decisions entering my mind. I’m astonished by the vast differences of the person I am today, from yesterday, from last week, and most definitely last year.

This time last year, I was scrambling for a transfer at work. I was scrambling for a place to live, in a city that was TBD.  I was scrambling for a love that never existed, with a person I never actually knew. I was going through the motions of a life that I was just scrambling to make my own, without much regard to my true character or passions.

Since last year, I’ve landed amazing opportunities amongst amazing people. People wishing my success as much as myself. I’ve loved and I’ve lost, and I’ve gained so much knowledge of friendships and relationships and what it means to grow up and sometimes grow apart.

I’ve noticed myself blatantly more comfortable around people. Showing up in every moment like its mine.  Challenging myself to make each face smile.

No one’s approval fucking matters.

I’ve been sober for over 30 days, and I’ve learned a lot of things about myself that I wasn’t anticipating:

Social settings.  And I mean anything from one-on-one dinners with my boyfriend, to garages full of smoke, to thumping dance floors in San Francisco nightclubs. I’ve been making the conscious decision not to say No to going somewhere, simply because I won’t be drinking. It’s actually incredibly eye opening who still makes plans with you after you stop getting wasted.

Meeting new people. When you know that you’re for sure as drunk as the person next to you, it’s easier to throw a comment out to someone new. Party favors bring everyone together to speak the same language. Drunk minds think alike, sober minds think independently. Meeting new people means relying on your sober wits.  It means explaining to guys paying for your redbull why you don’t want vodka in it.

Weekends. Suddenly the weekends mean there’s a lot of time for getting up early to accomplish the things you’ve been meaning to do for the last 6 years. Wholesome activities. I’m not talking about catching up on House of Cards while nursing a blue Gatorade.

Bad days. Granted, I don’t have many of these, but recently something did happen that made me look at my bestfriend and say, “I want a fucking drink.” Bad days, even far and few between, pair well with a beer. Scary as it is, you will find new avenues of coping without a crutch.

I am forever grateful for the moments you can sit back and smirk with great satisfaction at the life in front of you.
The moments you think, “I couldn’t be happier.”
“This couldn’t be more perfect.”

It’s those moments all on their own that make this life worth living.
Make this life worth working for.
Still open during construction.

Like most days, yesterday was dialed to perfection. My life is flourishing in my native soil with my family and growing with my friends. Thriving with sunshine and laughter. I’m overflowing with gratitude of this beautiful life I was given to grow.

It’s so effortless.

I drove by your parents’ house yesterday. I forgot you told me they divorced.  The For Sale sign in my face nearly broke my heart, and I’ll never know what made you stop loving me but know that I think about you all the time.

Even after the night I met you for dinner, and you expressed no remorse for the way things had been, and not that an apology is even what I was looking for, but I can’t help but to desperately hope that your addiction hasn’t since rid your memory of the mornings you woke up and pulled me closer.