Part 6. - "Hey waitress, what are you waiting for?"

Alice: A man came into the cafe today and said, "Hey waitress, what are you waiting for?"
Dan: Funny Guy
Alice: I said, "I'm waiting for a man to come in here and fuck me sideways with a beautiful line like that"
- Closer, Patrick Marber

As much as we don't want to admit it, our jobs and careers are a huge part of our lives. At the moment I feel like all I do is work and sleep, occasionally passing up on sleep to fit in a little bit of socializing. It's tragic to say the least. I wish more people had insisted that I really appreciate the time I spent at school, college and uni because it would be the last time i'd be able to HAVE time to do what I want. No one really stressed to me how awful it was to work 40 + hours a week. When ever I want to do something, I have to factor in when i'm working, not just what day and time but what my shifts are before and after. For example, I can't very well have a night out if I'm starting work at 7am. When I have long shifts in concession everything else has to stop. I don't have time for washing up, or making my bed, or even eating half the time. I get up, I take a bath, I work, I sleep. The house becomes a mess and I look a mess, but you do reach a certain point of exhaustion where you stop caring and then the fact your life is a mess is no longer an issue. The worst part though, my job isn't even important. It's not like i'm a doctor or a lawyer or something equally as important...

Whenever anyone asks what I do for a living, I reply with "I'm a cliche, I'm a failed actress working as a waitress." I'm not a very good waitress at that. I'm clumsy and a total flake. I can't cash up, I break glasses, I trip over customers bags.. but I still make tips. That could be because I'm a good actress and I make a good first impression. I smile, I laugh and I make conversation. A past employer once told me I would make a much better waitress if I wasn't so good at performing. The floor is my stage and while I'm serving, I always have someones attention. But i'm not always going to be a waitress.

I've had customers ask me what i'm going to be when I grow up. Of course I reply cheekily that I'm never going to grow up. Realistically, the very idea of being thirty and still a waitress upsets and frightens me. But i'm one of these girls who would like to be a million things. When I was a child I went through the usual careers, pink power ranger, nursary nurse, vet, teacher before deciding I wanted to be on tv at about the age of eight. It must of been a little disappointing for my parents since my sister wanted to be a dancer and I wanted to be an actress, no big money makers there. Sadly for both of us, we come from a small town where the arts aren't heavily supported and we come from a family that doesn't have enough money to ship us off to London. It's not their fault, it's not our fault, but I suppose it wasn't supposed to be. So of course now I have to decide what I really want to do with my life. Part of me would still love to act, especially in Shakespeare. I make a damn good damsel in distress. I'd make an excellent Desdemona in Othello, or Ophelia in Hamlet or especially Helena in A Midsummer Night's Dream. But que será será, at twenty two, I've learnt life isn't always what you want. Even the man who has everything always wants something else.

I'd love to be a traveller, to dance around the globe picking up jobs where ever. A true bohemian exsistance. But in reality who really gets to do that? It's so hard when Visas and work permits come into play. I'd love to be a writer. I have so many thoughts and opinions but I have no structure. I'd love to be a musician or a dancer, but I have no talent. I went through a horrible phase where I wanted nothing more than to be a housewife, to get married, to have children.. but after three years of that without the marriage or children, it got old. Ideally I'd love to be a librarian or work in a museum or an art gallery. Infact, I know nowadays that's what I'd like to do. I like the quietness, I like history and I especially love books. I could think nothing better than spending days sorting and organising. Once I sort the rest of my life out, I know thats what i'm going to focus on doing.

Just now, as I've mentioned, I work as a waitress. I work in a five star hotel, and even though I often hear myself exclaiming how much I despise my job, in many ways that's probably an exaggeration. I despise aspects of my job, yes. But sometimes I laugh so hard, I dance around, I feel okay and I realize I could be working a much worse job. I'm lucky I work with people who make me laugh and keep me going through long gruelling shifts.

Unfortunately, I work a lot of shifts during weddings which is hard to say the least. Not even a year ago I remember discussing my own wedding, I remember being told I was the only girl he wanted to marry, I remember looking at engagement rings.. and now I'm a waitress at someone elses wedding, i'm single, and i'm trying so hard to build a life for myself. I still struggle being an I instead of a we. I'm jaded now, part of me is unsure if I ever want to get married these days. Coming so close then being left with nothing and watching someone elses marriage fall apart is enough to put you off for life. My heart does sink a little watching the first dance, seeing the bride smile and knowing there is a huge possibility I'll never feel like that, I'll never get to experience it. But I put on a smile, I dance behind the bar and pretend. Some days it's just easier to pretend. Lately though, it's getting easier. Weddings sting less. I find myself hyper (or occassionally half cut) by 2am and I end up going home and feeling like I've had a good day, despite being half starved, exhausted with very painful feet.

B suggested I write a novel based on this part of my life, it's such a shame my writing has no structure. This blog is case and point.

Part 1. - This is a Story of a Girl.

"There is only one page left to write on. I will fill it with words of only one syllable. I love. I have loved. I will love." - Clare Abshire, The Time Travelers Wife

Sometimes endings are for the best, for example, sometimes you watch a sequel and realize that the end of the first movie should have been it. Or the end of the day when you crawl into bed with your loved one, or put your children to bed and have a well earned rest. Or the end of an especially hard shift at work, when you walk outside and inhale that fresh air smell of freedom. How about the end of a school year, especially when you know you have an excellent summer ahead of you? Everything in life has a beginning, a middle and an end, everything you do, everything you experience. Even life itself. Sometimes endings are hard, but after every ending, you have to remember something new is about to begin.

Seventy Seven Broadway, had to end as that part of my life had ended. I’m beginning a new kind of life, and with this new kind of life, comes a new kind of blog. A blog about an ordinary every day girl.

I love reading chick lit books, I love feeling like I could be the heroine of the book.. but in 9 cases out of 10, there is still something extra ordinary about the girl that I sometimes think I could be. Something extra ordinary that makes her worth having a story about her.. like she has a job where she can jet off to exotic places. Or she has money. Or connections. But what about the ordinary every day girl who’s trying to make her mark on the world? Someone with no special job, with little money and no connections. Someone like me? Does that mean my life isn’t worthy of a story? Sometimes I wish there were stories about real girls like me. Just so I know I’m not alone in the world, that there are other girls like me out there, the ordinary original ones. The ones who screw up often, make a fool of themselves. The ones who are afraid of being afraid.

My ex often told me how boring I am, but I know I’m not, and I know my life isn’t boring. I’d never let my life get boring because of the fact I’m so easily bored. I’m not someone who is content sitting around doing nothing, I always have to be doing something! But to him, I was boring. And hell, did that hurt... sometimes I’d start to think maybe I was. When you’re told something over and over again you start to believe it. I was told a lot of things at school, if my high school was the one from Glee, I’d be the one getting a slushy in her face. But I know it was because I was different from the socially accepted norm. I preferred the arts to sports and I didn’t drink or smoke or sleep with all the boys in my year. I used to be that good girl so back then, yes, maybe I was a little boring. I liked Shakespeare, and languages and playing the flute. But I know as soon as I left Berwick High School, I changed, and I know from then on, I was definitely anything but boring.

I’m off on a tangent. I apologize.

I’m now a twenty two year old girl, getting lost in the real world, fresh out and surviving the worst kind of heart break. I’m aspiring to be everything I’m not. I’m planning on seeing the world, one postcard place at a time. Loving, living and losing every day. I’m going to be the heroine of my own story, just an ordinary girl, doing every day things. I hope that perhaps this blog will be an inspiration for anyone else who has to one day pack up and leave their old life, move across the country and try and start something new. I hope one day I can read back and be proud of what i’ve accomplished, and most of all, I hope I can give all my followers a good laugh along the way.

So welcome to my world.