New habits

It's interesting how we cultivate new habits and let go of old, useless ones. As I stood there at the hostess stand at my new job, learning a new routine and seeing all of these new faces, I realized how easy it is to settle into a routine. I was training as a hostess and the girl training me had a nasty hangover from a recent trip to Las Vegas. She did her tasks as if blindfolded, not grasping that it was the first time I was seeing it.

I watched as all the servers completed the daily tasks, preparing for dinner: cleaning the wine glasses, cutting the butter, polishing the silverwear, sweeping...etc. I've been there, and I imagined that they weren't even present or mindful of what they were doing - likely thinking about something other than those tasks. But I sat there taking it all in. It would soon be my daily routine. It is a familiar place but with brand new faces. This new routine was upon me and even though I swore off serving tables, I have to admit that I was excited about doing it again.

It occurs to me when I least expect it that my life has changed dramatically in a short amount of time. I can feel my system still adjusting to this new environment, these new sounds, views..lifestyles. Three weeks ago I was working with investment bankers and living in the big city and today I was sharing space with cute servers and french bread. It really never ceases to amaze me how quickly your life can change. Our daily, life habits are formed without us even realizing it, really. It could be the time you take lunch or the kiss you give your loved one as you walk out the door in the morning and the way you greet them as you come together at the end of your day. These things - these stupid, minute gestures are the habits that I abruptly had to eliminate from my daily routine - and they are what I miss the most. I liked knowning that he was there - calling me, dining with me, being there just watching a show. I never minded being alone then.

Now, I feel the lonliness more. I want to go camping, eat dinner out, see a movie - and it occurs to me how much adjustment I still need to make to this new lifestyle. And even if I know my way around this place, I still feel like a foreigner. Each day I wonder when I'll leave again.

Occasionally I think back to my daily life in NY and I know that my life was becoming routine and quite frankly, I'm now thankful all this was a shocking change because it woke me up. Now I look back and I am that much more aware of how unhappy with my old life I actually was. I remember thinking, "is this the last man I'll ever kiss?"

Anais Nin wrote, "You live like this, sheltered, in a delicate world, and you believe that you are living. Then you read a book, or you take a trip, and you discover that you are not living, that you are hibernating. The symtoms of hibernating are eaily detective: first, restlessness. The second symptom (when hibernating becomes dangeriuos and might degenerate into death): absence of pleasure. That is all. It appears like an innocuous illness. Monotony, boredom, death. Millions live like this (or die like this) without knowing it. They work in offices. They drive a car. The picnic with their families. They raise children. Then some shock treatment takes place, a person, a book, a song, and it awakens them and saves them from death."

For me, routine does not mean stability. All that I'm doing is new - even if the setting is familiar. I'm relearning self-reliance and rediscovering that I was a woman who was interested in so many, many things. I used to be adventurous. I used to break rules...make up my own. I used to be really, almost annoyingly independent. Now I'm a woman that second-guesses every choice she makes. I am a woman who is reteaching herself to love and accept herself. I am slowly yet insistantly finding my way back into this body of mine and I can tell that each day I'm alone, however lonely it can be, I grow stronger.

I will likely develop new habits because I know that, as humans, we are destined to be creatures of habit in some regards. However, I am thankful that this new job , however difficult it might be for me to relearn the ways of the service industry (because contrary to what people think, it does take talent and intelligence), I really do think it will teach me to live in the present and will offer me a break from my constant desire to decide what I want to be when I grow up.

Bon appetite, everyone!