it is finding my brave

I cried 3 times today. 

Today was the first day I was alone since I've moved to Utah. So I decided on my adventure a few days ago did proper research and set out to accomplish a childhood dream, to see wild horses and burros actually in the wild :-). The closest herd to me is a burro herd in the San Rafael Swell. I drove rocky roads for three hours and had just about given up when I saw them. Three, out of a herd of 50.  A momma her baby and a friend grazing against a stormy sky. When I saw them I surprised myself with tears. I was so happy! When I was a child I had read all the Marguerite Henry books. One of my favorite being "Brighty of the Grabd Canyon"  about a little burro who lived in the canyon. I was over the moon to see these little burros today!  I walked carefully out into the field getting as close as they'd let me which was about 500 feet and snapped photos to my hearts delight. I thanked the burros and left the park with the biggest smile in my heart. 

The second time I cried I was hiking up Goblin valley to a cave called "The Goblin's Lair". I am not afraid of much, but I do have an irrational fear of dying in a cave. So as I climbed what looked like a rockslide to climb back down the rockslide into the cave to turn around and do the whole thing again, I cried. This time in fear of my life. My brain kept telling my feet not to move towards my certain doom. But I pushed and pushed and made it up and down and in and out. I will need to go back a few times this summer to truly overcome this fear but I made a good start. As I was climbing by myself I realized how alone I was in that moment. No other hikers, no friends or family around it was me and my fear. But I did it, all by myself like a big girl :-). 

The third time I cried was because I had forgotten my heart was broken. I explored the first valley after my cave climb and was in awe of these sculptures. The most remarkable thing was the fact that though they were hard as rock you could peel layers of sand away from them. It was the most fascinating thing I had seen or felt.  And at the end of my day when I reached for my phone to tell that someone about this magical place I had found myself in I remembered that I couldn't and that brought the heartache. But I stopped and smiled and remembered something a fellow instagrammer had shared about seeing the creativity in nature. And so I did and then I laughed at the childlike cartoon characters that surrounded me. And the tears dried up and the joy took hold and I took a deep breath of the present happiness. 

I am far from perfect, far from whole, far from breaking through the chains that have been holding me back. But today I found my brave each and every step of the way. With a little luck and a lot of hard work I may just find myself again. :-)

it is the servers nightmare

It's been almost two weeks since I worked in a restaurant and almost a month since I've managed one. But I am still having "server dreams". For those of you who have done my job in the past you know what I'm talking about. The constant worry you forgot something for some table manifests into dreams about impossible parties, awkward road blocks to get your table simple things like water, doors in random places to knock over your tray. When your a manager the dreams are worse. Mostly server dreams make you feel like a rat running a maze. Manager dreams usually come with a nice strong heap of failure attached to them. 

My restaurant dreams seem to all follow the same pattern, I am a happy little FOH (front of house or floor manager) checking on tables refilling drinks and trusting my BOH (back of house or kitchen manager) to be doing their job. Then everything crashes, tables have been waiting 30 minutes for their brownie, people are restless and hungry, so I step back into the kitchen to help out. (For those of you who haven't ever had to step into a crashed kitchen to dig them out, let me tell you, it's not fun. Basically imagine so much chaos and information being thrown at you you feel like you just stepped into the heart of a tornado. There's massive amount of movement and yelling. You not only have to focus in the chaos you have to fix a moving changing puzzle. Restauarnt people have a lingo. Being in the weeds means you are so in over your head you can't see the light above nor a path to get and you don't have any sense of direction. Basically it's the worst feeling in the world. You have too many people wanting too many things in too many directions and your brain is full. Full to the max overload. When the kitchen is in the weeds, it's worse. You don't know what's cooking which table it's for or if you have enough fries down. The entire goal of every shift is to NOT GET WEEDED. Because when is happens it is hell to get out of.)  As a manager you get blamed for everything. And lovely patrons who don't care that you've been working for 10 hours and have 5 more to go, had three cooks out sick, you had to fire a server for being high as a kite when he showed up or that you've been trying your best to be 5 people doing 6 jobs all night all they care about is that they had to wait 25 minutes for their meatloaf and it didn't have enough green beans. And because it didn't have enough green beans and he was hungry and had to wait he would like me to know that it is entirely my fault and I don't know what I'm doing or how to run a restaurant. Thank you sir, I was unaware that I was such a failure. I appreciate the fact that you brought it to my attention. 

All this is to say my lovelies, be kind to your servers, bartenders, managers and cook staff. We are all human, we make mistakes. Please forgive us. Because trust me we are all dreaming through our guilt of forgetting your extra ranch three weeks ago. 

Now I for one and grateful I get to destress for a while and hopefully these dreams will eventually cease. 

it is the relief of freedom

I have got to say driving through this open country, I don't think I have ever felt so free. The vastness of the sky. The wind whipping my face. Going where I want to, for how long or when I want. I can feel the restraints of the career and expectations being lifted. During this morning's hike I found myslef crying. Not from sadness and not from joy. Rather tears of relief as I let my past go. 

it is a new year

My new year does not ever begin on my birthday or the calendar new year it begins in March. And so this year, like every other, I can feel the universe shifting underneath me. I set out on a journey to find myself three years ago when I moved across the country to South Carolina and this path of discovery has led to more to be discovered. So as the this new year awakens I am finding myself moving again. This time west to Utah. I am going to lose myself in the desert and hopefully as I lose parts of me I will find the solid strong pieces of my heart.

it is a man

I was dating a man, easily the best man that has ever taken an interest in my life. He is good, kind, intelligent and unique. And he didn't want me. After he ended things and I sat in the shower and cried for an hour, and after I let the emotion wash over my soul with all the loneliness and pain it could I forced myself to stand. And still now in those moments when the sadness engulfs me for not being enough, for not being his one, for being alone again I force myself to stand. And each time I do I remember pieces. Pieces of the good we shared. Pieces of my life that will always bring a smile and eventually a pain won't follow that smile.