blisters, boxes, and beginning again
I've a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore
“I love how you talk to yourself.”
My coworker whizzes past me holding a full tray of drinks. You can hear me? I think to myself, cheeks flushed with embarrassment. I make a mental note to quiet my self-dialogue moving forward.
I have recently started a new serving job, one that has kept me sufficiently busy my first week home from school. I have gone from memorizing the intricacies of fatty acid metabolism to a comprehensive steakhouse menu. The steakhouse menu debatably proving to be more complicated. It’s no big girl job quite yet, but there is something about the adrenaline rush of a dinner service that keeps reeling me back in summer after summer.
I mutter under my breath the steps of each service:
“Table 6 needs dessert menus and table 8 needs their bill so I will first make the drinks for table 12 and on my way to table 12 with the drinks I need to drop the dessert menus at table 6 and the bill at table 8 then drop the drinks then return to table 8 to take payment while table 6 thinks about dessert then I’ll ring in their dessert before returning to table 12 to take food order”
Phew.
My mind doesn’t stop when I return home. Cardboard boxes have piled themselves into the corner of my bedroom, filled with god knows what at this point. I tiptoe past them each day, hoping they won’t notice as I once again ignore their looming presence.
My childhood bedroom is welcoming and unfamiliar all at once. Most things are exactly where I had left them, save for slight shifts of the pillows or items on my bedside table, suggesting someone’s intermittent presence. A crossover episode ensues between the artifacts collected over my university years and those that were acquired and hoarded over 18 years of my childhood.
She’s changed, the boxes seem to say.
We can tell, my bedroom responds.
Girl on a journey of self-discovery finds herself stopped in her tracks by the one red light on her small town's main street. Girl smashes head against steering wheel in hopes that something will change. But does she want it to? It’s not personal, and it’s been growing for a while now, a general discontent and malaise at the concept of returning. It’s business. It’s growing up and realizing that it’s not just your body but your brain that doesn’t fit anymore. But circumstances prevail, and the show must go on. Lights will turn green eventually; until then, I’ll idle. They don’t have sensors at the stop lights yet, even if it’s just you waiting.
The songs I used to listen to in high school trigger something central and fundamental in my being, and I am reminded of the hours I spent curating playlists while dreaming of life beyond home. In the words of Lorde, I wish I could grab my things and just let go. I’m waiting for it. Turns out home is the same; it’s actually just me in my body wherever I roam.
Heels bloody from blisters caused by my new work shoes, I power through the mess of it all. The change of routine, the distance from friends, the new environment, submitting my thesis, and starting a new job. It’s a whirlwind.
Picking up where I left off, I begin again.
Thank you! 🙏🏽
Fabulous writing x