Recently I discovered my latest passion. Over the years I have had plenty that I thought would go somewhere but never really took me anywhere. They sparked joy in me for a short time and then they fizzled out. As I sit here at my desk three of those things come to mind off hand because they are write in front of me. Just seeing them makes me sad but this is where my computer lives in my house, my parents house (get to that part of my anxieties/depression later), and I am not sure if it would be suited anywhere else in the house or in general.

Earlier this year I was just scrolling through Netflix once again on lock down. This time it had actually only been for two weeks like the first one was supposed to be and ended up being three and a half months. Everyone in the world should know what I am talking about at this point unless you have been living under a rock for over a year now. Well I wasn’t in the mood to start a new binge so I went to documentaries. A huge THANK YOU goes out to The Minimalists for their documentary Less Is Now. I have not watched it twice since it came out and I have been devouring their podcast for the last two weeks. If anything this podcast has taught me to concentrate on the here and now more than I have my entire adult life. While listening to each podcast I am usually either driving to or from work or sitting in my room. Today while listening to the episode entitled Mentalclutter, I know right, I was sitting my room pulling out containers from spots all over my room going through them and organizing them. Do I really need all these lip glosses? I haven’t warn lip gloss in I have no idea when, so no. I have so many stickers in my top drawer of my nightstand that I have no idea what to do with knowing at one point I had them there right next to me ‘just in case’. Looking around me now at this desk there are dozens of pens and pencils that I have no idea if they function so that might be a task I can put upon myself while I am listening to the podcast as well.

My mom and I watch a lot of HGTV and so I have been fascinated with other people’s living situations for a very long time. Tiny homes have been on my mind for a while. The Sims game has been one of my passions on and off for 20 years. I took a drafting and design class in high school and it just fueled my passion for home design and decor further. The Sims games came out with a tiny homes expansion and that peaked my interest for a fleeting moment as well. Once again I mention that my attention span is almost at a zero except when it comes to listening to books or podcasts. Even reading unfortunately leads me to pick up my phone and scroll Facebook or play a game until I run out of lives/energy in said game. This is where my anxiety kicks in most though. I am not sure what to do with myself because I have so much to do and don’t know where to begin.

I know I can be a horrible person to be around. I don’t even like myself most days. I come across as lazy to some people and I yet I am just trying to do too much all at once barely getting anything I want to done at all. I know my some of my coworkers think poorly of me because I can’t get all the menus cleaned before they get there. I’m sorry that no one during the lunch hours want to use the QR code. On Friday 130 guests came through before my replacements got there. That’s an average of 35 tables in just over 4 hours between when people started coming in and I left. I’m sorry I wasn’t just chilling up at the host stand wiping menus that whole time instead of you know busing tables. And yes by the way I did clean both bathrooms so that was another 15min I was not up at the host stand wiping the fucking menus.

Two weeks ago, so starting yesterday, I took my Saturdays away from my work availability. This was to alleviate the anxieties I felt working most Saturdays and I used to feel on Sundays with the amount of traffic that came through the restaurant on those days. My anxieties became too much for me to handle that I had other coworkers yelling at for doing everything within the scope of my job that wasn’t what they thought I should be doing. People half my age and twice my age telling me I am not doing my job the way they think I should be doing it only because I have been doing it my way for four years and three months up to this point and they have been doing their position for three months and 14 years respectively. I am the only ‘expert’ qualified trainer in my position but my brain cannot do what it needs to to teach others when I have a million people around me yelling about when they will be sat (both guests and servers alike).

Truthfully I hope that eventually I will be able to figure out a way to wrap my brain around minimizing the things in my life so I can learn to prioritize me and the people around me. For now I take my anxiety and depressive state once moment at a time, one task at a time.

“Love people and use things because the opposite never works.” – Joshua Fields Millburn

Waking up twenty minutes before the alarm is nothing new. It happens a lot around here these days since I had to start setting an alarm again. Three weeks ago Applebee’s opened its doors once again to the public for dine-in. Being back has been different because I not only have been Host but I have been placed in a new position that I was really enjoying until this past Saturday.

For the last full week I have been the Sanitation Specialist. At this position I deep clean and sanitize all of the active tables throughout the building after each guest. While similar to the Host job description before it is different in the time it takes between tables. Each of the sprays I use has to sit on the table and chairs for a minute before they are to be wiped off for maximum effectiveness. That is three minutes a table. With there being twenty-four active tables and on the average Saturday doing each of them at least three times that is seventy-two tables adding up to 216 minute of work (3hours and 36minutes). That is not including the bathrooms which both also have to be deep cleaned and sanitized which takes me by myself about a half hour.  So in total I did four hours and six minutes of non-stop work on Saturday. That’s not a lot for you 9-5ers and I get that. This is manual labor though so by the end of the average day I am in so much pain I am numb.

Especially when there is supposed to be a second person helping you do said positions work load on a day like Saturday. The first guy that was there to be my second I heard take a phone call in the restroom first thing in the morning and proceed to tell our supervisor that he didn’t feel well and needed to go home. He left and they proceeded to replace him with an extra waitress they had on hand. She was present for the first hour and I am pretty sure I saw he bus one table which I proceeded to clean and sanitize. Then she comes up to me and says she will be going on break and having lunch with her family who came in to see her. Being that she was supposed to be the evening Sanitation Specialist I was fine because how much could my life fall the fuck apart in one hour…make it two. She sat down for lunch just after one o’clock that afternoon and by the time I saw her next it was after three. I told her I was fine but I clearly wasn’t. I told her I was upset about how another server was treating me and while that was more the truth it was a depressing combination of both. Not sure where she went after that conversation but I continued to clean the four tables in the section that I was in.

All this and the Hostess is nowhere to be seen so I go to sit two tables in which the one server informs me that he was double sat so lack of communication right there should tell you something about where this is going. I go back to my tables that need finished and I talk to the supervisor about the server that had been treating like shit all day. I tell her I would rather quit right then and there than ever work with her again. As soon as I finish with the section I was on I grabbed my things and stormed out the carside door with barely a word to anyone on the way out.

I clocked out at 4:08pm on Saturday. I clocked in at 10:52am. That is five hours and sixteen minutes that I was clocked into work for the day. So barely an hour and ten minutes of that was I doing nothing as that server suggested. Most of that time was the 11 o’clock hour after we first opened when I was just waiting for a table to clean. So 4:08 to 4:18 I am sitting in my car fuming. I am not only physically numb I am also emotionally numb. I have forgotten how to breath at this point. Ten minutes sitting in my hot car before I remember to turn it on and pull out of my spot. I don’t even remember driving there but I end up at my local Starbucks where I stop for coffee almost daily. I tell my friends who work there about my day and how I am shocked I wasn’t in an accident on the way there. I take my coffee and thank them for enduring my tirade about my day. I drive home and tell my mom in short about my day because she is one to not hear me when I am like that. She makes out to be being overly sensitive. My dad always just says, “don’t sweat the small shit, and its all small shit.” Both sentiments are useless to me when I am upset about anything big or small. Then I went up to my room to get out of my work clothes and proceeded to cry for the better part of twenty minutes. Then we had dinner as a family, mom and I watched a movie together and then I drank the rest of the night away until I woke up at 11:15 on Sunday which is my off day anyway.

Last night before I went to bed I checked out the site where the schedule is posted and saw that the server who thinks that, I don’t do anything in the job I have and don’t know how to do anything right and “don’t know what its like to be a server” (I walked past a conversation between her and another server and she deliberately said this louder and looked my way as I am passing through the dining room), is going to be working on Tuesday so I made the informed decision to drop my shift for that morning. Now as far as I know unless she switched with someone she is not supposed to be on today. I don’t really want to quit, especially since my mom pointed out I should have another job before I quite this one.

Sitting her at my desk looking down at my pile of duct tape works beside me I wish that I could just give up on the outside world and just run with my upstart but that’s a pipe dream I fear may never come true. Last week I added phone case wallet to my collection. I gave the first one to my boss because she just had all her credit cards in the pile the back of her phone case so obviously neither the phone or the cards was fitting properly.I have made three totes and two purses since quarantine started back in March and now I have made five phone cases.

Now seeing it is 9:30 I guess I should go get ready for work though.

Do you listen to audio books? As I said in my last post I have been listening to them pretty regularly lately. Well last night I had a thought as I had to get out of bed and go over to where my phone is plugged in to pause my book before I fell asleep which still took me another to hours to do (another story). Why isn’t there a feature that can tell when you fall asleep and pause your music, book or whatever for you. There are millions of wearable devices out there now that track your every move and your sleep. I had a FitBit for years and then last year I got a Galaxy Watch for Christmas. Both devices tracked my sleep patterns to the best of their ability. Still I have to manually pause my book on my phone, also a Samsung Galaxy, before I officially get settled in my bed at night. I have scoured the manual and the settings for my watch and my phone and there has yet to be a feature invented to do this one seemingly simple task. I went to bed at midnight but fell asleep according to my health app on my watch at 2 am. Now I could have got a good hour or so more of my book done if I wanted to but I was not risking getting up again walking over to my phone and getting distracted by the apps on my phone just to have the opportunity to go to my library app and turn the book back on. With technology getting smarter every single second of every single day especially since most of us have nothing better to do but be on our phones you would think that this would be a thing now that someone has thought up. If there is something out there already I haven’t  found it yet. If anyone knows of something similar and could pay it forward that would be amazing. Anyway thank you all that pop in for indulging my 1 am thoughts.

We might be all alone but we are all together alone. The whole world is stuck in the same boat that you are. There is so much information coming out at you from all directions about what is happening around the world and in your own back yard. As a person with severe social anxiety issues and complete introvert I joke but its kinda implied that I am well prepared for something like this. Well I lost my job as most people did back in the middle of March and that was one of the few things that I chose to go out and do instead of sitting at home becoming coming completely agoraphobic. Ways I have been keeping myself busy and idea for you if you have become completely dumbfounded as to what do with yourself are: going for a walk around the neighborhood, reading a book (listening to free books on tape through a library app), binge watching shows on streaming sites/apps (which came pass the time quickly but also I have found tires me out quickly), do puzzles (I have to say I am stuck on the one my aunt gave me at Christmas right now but I am sure it will come together eventually), pick a craft any craft (my mom chose to make masks for the family and fix old jewelry, I have decided to get back into duct tape wallets and bags since it has been a while). You can always Spring clean the house. That one is an absolute given that people just say they never have time for…ALL THE TIME IN THE WORLD NOW. Switch your closet out from winter stuff to Spring/Summer stuff even if like in PA and other surrounding areas it apparently snowed last night. There are also so many new things one can learn in this time. There are free courses online. There are language sites and apps that you can use to learn a new language so when we can all go out and travel again we can communicate with the world not just with our neighbors. Currently I am learning Gaelic through the Duolingo app and I think it is the coolest thing I have ever put my mind to. Three library audio books, a hardback and a paperback, binge watched three shows while keeping up with the shows that are still on regular cable, organized my closet and really my whole room in the last almost month since I stepped foot into Applebee’s where I have worked for over three years. Hopefully some day soon they will be able to open there doors again and I will be welcomed back but for now we work with what we have. Thankfully I am still at home with my parents and we are healthy. Both of them are still working during this time. Right now I am just using social media to keep in touch with the rest of my family and all of my friends. I have yet to be personally affected by this crisis at this time and I pray I never will. With the Passover and Easter holidays this week I pray for everyone that this time next year we can all celebrate together as one. As citizens not only of our countries, our faiths, but citizens of the world.

Waiting for nothing to happen.

You ever have one of those days, weeks, years where you just cry for what seems like no reason whatsoever. You just burst into tears just thinking about life. I really hate when I know I am mad at myself and my coworker pushes the subject as to why I look upset AND THEN I start crying because now I have to put my thoughts to words. These excruciatingly horrible thoughts that no one should ever have to think about themselves. As I am placing all my cards on the table she starts telling me how her life is so much worse. THIS IS NOT A GAME! You asked me what was wrong with me and I begrudgingly told you and I am sorry I told you simply because you wanted someone to feel sorry for YOU. Yes when I can get someone’s ear I generally am happy about it because most of the time I feel like Mia at the beginning of Princess Diaries: Invisible.

This week at work has been slow to say the very least. I have worked barely 3 hours yesterday and today each because there is absolutely no need for the one person in the front of house that technically makes slightly more than everyone I work with on a daily basis to be there if there aren’t any customers to greet or seat. Yesterday was fine because I got to clean and organized things the way I like them after a weekend I had off that inevitably made it look like no one works there. Today I was trying to talk to my coworkers at times and I wasn’t getting a word in edge wise or when I was it was going in one ear and out the other. Invisible.

I know trying to talk to someone from afar is hard but when you are right across from the person it can be hard too. I would like to ask a question or make my point as well. If that is too hard to comprehend is when I shut down and I look miserable. Hence what started the conversation/pity party competition with my other coworker.

It also occurred to me that when talking to my one worker yesterday morning she asked how a recent interview went, and I said it sucked. She in return asked if I am not good at interviewing, my obvious response being yes. This made me think about how I go into interviews in general knowing beforehand that they will not get me anywhere but also how I leave them knowing that how things work these days people who already have the job they want, to interview people like me, are to busy in that job to not even bother with a Thanks but No Thanks email or call. I would appreciate one occasionally, you know. I think we all would. I set aside my time to come to you and interview for a job I was sure I wasn’t qualified for but tried to show you I was willing to learn more about. The least anyone can do I have a quick response button with a ‘Thanks for you time but we went with another candidate.’

I don’t want anyone’s sob story almost more than I don’t want to look someone in the eye and give them mine. Ok so I wasn’t the right fit for your retail store position. So what your boyfriend is acting odd as of late. At least you have a job that makes you feel important enough to get out of bed in the morning. At least you have a person in your life you can call your someone.

Here I am thirty years old living in my childhood bedroom wondering what I want to be when I grow up.