Living In The Wrong Story

I don’t even know why I bother looking at the menu at this point. I know what I am going to get and the waiter does as well because I have been here every damn Friday night for the past 3 weeks. The waiter knows and I know, I am going to put the menu down look up at him, smile and ask him for the Eggplant Parmesan as if I am trying it for the very first time and hope that it is as good as I have heard. Do I need to stop coming to this place? Why yes I do. Because let’s be honest the eggplant parmesan is not good in the slightest. But the problem is I don’t know how to let go of what once was a good life. A life I carefully planned, sculpted, and found some sort of joy in.

My life went to shit after this less-than-pleasing plate of eggplant I ate here. I keep thinking that if I can just recreate that night I can somehow know how to move on, or rebuild my life. I know it is ridiculous and possibly pathetic, who am I kidding of course it is pathetic but what else am supposed to do? I am open to suggestions because right now I have no damn clue where to go from here and I have an interest in going home and dealing with my mother's judgmental eyes and condescending tone. Nope, I rather bathe in denial and recreate this night each week until the universe comes to its senses and decides to upgrade my life. Consider it a protest, I refuse to pick up what the Universe is putting down.

I was happy or at least content. I wasn’t one of those people who did not complain about their job or dreaded going home because they resented their partner. I felt secure in my career as a copywriter. Was it my dream job? No, it wasn’t but I was good at it and it paid the bills. It’s the way life goes right? You go to college then graduate and get a 9-5 so that for the next 40 years someone can tell you when to eat, use the bathroom and decide how much you should get paid each year based on your performance like you are a monkey in a circus show or something. Then you go home and spend the few hours you have left in the day mentally struggling to be healthy while obsessing over the donuts that your partner keeps buying and you keep trying to not eat because you can no longer fit your favorite jeans that make your butt look great. Can’t afford to splurge on really nice ones because your partner keeps quitting their job because “it doesn’t feed their soul.” It’s the way of life right though, you either accept reality or spend your life unhappy focusing on the negative. I refuse to focus on the negative so I came to the revelation that happiness is for fairytales and contentment is for us real folks. 

My partner Adam was quite the opposite and believed in following wherever his soul led him which meant sleeping with our neighbor. I found this wonderful news out on our way home from our Friday date night. I was reading an email from work letting me know that there will be cutbacks and my department a.k.a me would be a part of that equation when he decided he felt guilty and couldn’t hold it in anymore. Let’s just say that I was numb by the time we arrived home. I couldn’t hear anything or feel anything. As I sat on the couch and watched Adam pack his stuff. I couldn’t move, think or feel. All I wondered was how? I always made sure I played it safe. I never dated outside of my league, or got involved with someone that I could deeply fall in love with, I didn’t pursue my dreams of being a singer and this is what I get? I just couldn’t understand. Hours passed and the night turned into day. I finally came to, when I heard a persistent knocking on the door. Reluctantly, I opened the door to see both of my childhood friends looking at me with great concern. The first thing I thought was how did they find out about Adam and me? But when Shelly my best friend since the sandbox spoke it all registered, Brunch! I have brunch with my two best friends Shelly and Amanda every Saturday morning. “Thank God you’re alive, we thought something happen to you!” Shelly said as she hugged me with relief all over her face. Amanda being the feisty one out of the bunch “dude, that is messed up. You had us worried that you were lying in here dead or worse kidnapped.” That's when I felt the first emotion in the past 14 hours: remorse, which led to a floodgate of emotions following after hitting me like blows to the gut. Despair hit me with an uppercut, failure was a jab me in the side, anger got a good right hook in and hopelessness was the sucker punch to the face. Looking at both of my friends who have known me longer than anyone, I began to gasp for air as I cried uncontrollably. With confusion written all over their face they did their best to comfort me and ask me what happened, all I could manage to say was “I didn’t ask for too much.”

Three weeks later, I sit in this freaking restaurant and I am still trying to figure out how this could have happened to me when I avoided the risk and took the safe route. Paying the bill and getting ready to leave, a woman sits down across from me with a gentle smile on her face and looks at me as if she is looking into my soul. She says nothing, and I say nothing, which then gets awkward because I don’t know what to do but I already paid so I guess I could leave but then that might be rude because the lady sat down across from me. I don’t know what to say or do and I am confused as hell, so I just say “umm can I help you?” She then sharpens her eyes and I instantly begin to regret speaking and not just leaving, when I am starting to feel some stranger danger vibes. But she then speaks “you have to let go of what was, what will, and what should” oh great she is crazy. She chuckles at the expression on my face which I am sure clearly shows what I am thinking. As I am preparing to open my mouth to excuse myself and get the hell out of here, she cuts me off before I can speak “you haven’t asked for enough and it is an insult to me” I reply with “huh” she sits back and say’s you “live in comfort and are trapped by fear, you cling to avoidance, it is time to walk in your true nature and ask for more. You can have so much more, if only you believe you are worth it. You seem to forget the nights you were laying in bed questioning your life or whenever you go to a live show and listen to a new artist.” Fully freaking out and looking around to see if I can get some help, I ask “Who are you?” She simply replies in a gentle tone. “They call me Uni for short but just remember you resented your job and you had a gut feeling about Adam's intentions. Don’t waste time longing for a life that you were never supposed to have in the first place.” As I was about to ask more question's she got up and left without another glance in my direction. Perplexed, I sat back in the booth and felt that just maybe I had it wrong all this time and in fact, I have been selling myself a story that was not meant to be written. Walking out to my car I realized that I asked the Universe a few years ago to help me let go of things that are keeping me from living my best life.