I thoroughly enjoyed my time with my boys.
I’m trying to wind down from it and get back to reality. I have to work tonight. Overnight. Sunday. It should be a relaxing ride. Work usually brings me pleasure it’s just, last night when I couldn’t sleep I had this waking nightmare and, well, it wasn’t fun at all.
Being a waitress is a completely humbling experience. It’s fun. You get to meet new people all the time and you get to exercise your skills at making them feel good. I manipulate energy a lot at work. Like, if a table doesn’t seem to be in good spirits, I silently send them good energy and tease them a little to make them smile.
The hardest part about work, besides when the supplies are running low and you have to go on a treasure hunt to find things is when I get a table that is intent on asking me questions. They’re usually questions that border on the line of judging me because I am a waitress or because I’m single or because my name is so hood.
A week or so ago, I had a beautiful couple at my table and the man kept asking me about how I ended up as a waitress and what I was going to do to move forward in life. “Maybe you should think about getting some education,” he suggested. “Maybe you can find a mentor or something. You’re too pretty to be working here.”
I just stayed quiet and smiled and thanked him for his suggestions.
Another night not long after that other table, I met a man who was so interesting looking. He was there with his beautiful wife. She seemed cheerful enough but he wore a frown on his face the entire time, although he was dressed impeccably. I stood there enduring questions from him the entire time like, “Where are you from?” I told him, which is a very poor part of Miami. He raised his eyebrow and asked, “What is the farthest away that you’ve ever been?”
I told him.
“Hmph,” he said and explained himself. “Seems to me that people from that part of the city don’t ever move out of their city limits.”
I understood what he was saying and I have felt the same way at times but I found his conversation to be very offensive. I know my hood isn’t the greatest and I am constantly judged by people who have ‘made it’ when I say that I am from there. It’s like they look down on me.
On that night, standing in front of a couple who obviously had ‘made it’ and feeling like they were laughing at me, I decided that I wouldn’t feel bad about it. They don’t know me. They don’t know my talents or my choices. In order to manage my emotions I just, inhaled and exhaled and PUSHED out some love energy at the man. I pushed it out so much that I actually felt love for him and nothing else.
“Greatness comes out of Liberty City,” I said to him. “Look at me.”
Yeah. Look at me.
Constantly defending who I am to people who know absolutely nothing about my capabilities. That’s crazy.
The really crazy part is, although people think I should want more- I don’t. I mean, yes, I want to move and have my own space but, other than that, it’s a whatever.
I received my first request for mentoring today. I am now offering free mentoring sessions through my website. It’s a service I would have damn sure utilized myself had it been available to me. I’m half way jealous and half way proud that women now have the blessing of someone who is willing to listen to them and share wisdom.
Do you know how many YEARS I spent emailing, calling and writing letters before the internet came along? I have studied marketing, business models, biographies, philosophy. I take the free online courses when they are offered. It took me 3 hours to figure out how to point the new domain name to my blog. I study coding. I study how to write effective emails. I write and write to people asking them for advice on how to be successful. I always wished I could find someone with wisdom who could help me along and believe in me. Even now, when I meet someone I think has wisdom, I ask for help and for the most part, I am turned down.
I have a number of women, well, 3 in total so far, in this city who keep emailing me asking me over and over to meet with them. One of them I vaguely remember but the others I don’t. They want to speak with me in person about their goals and they want me to partner with them in developing their ideas. I don’t get why they are doing this. I’m nobody. I have nothing. I wouldn’t even have a decent outfit to wear if I met them for lunch.
While I am not available to do that because I don’t want to catch buses around the city when I can just talk on the phone, these women are persistent. So I just tell them about my 30 minute free mentoring phone sessions and hope that it will be enough.
I don’t understand why people want to meet. I can ask my questions through email. In fact, I don’t even do phone interviews anymore. I am so pressed for time and energy that I am sure the women I profile are as well so I just send over questions via email and ask them to send them back and then I write the profile that way.
I don’t know man. I need to raise my vibe. I’m feeling kind of down right now and I can’t do that to my customers tonight. They’re coming out to eat to have a good time and be taken care of. My issues are mine, I can’t transfer them to these people.
I’d love to hug my boys more. I’d love to have a home where I feel safe and the people there aren’t lieing to me to my face or stalking me online. I’d love to go to the dentist and get my teeth fixed. Besides the fact that I smoke a LOT, I have several infected teeth which makes my breath so BAD; it’s so embarrassing. I just need money to go to the dentist.
And yeah, it’s October. 10 years being single and I have to sit down and focus on what I can teach thats POSITIVE about all of that. I swear, I would love to one day have good stories to tell about the guys I meet.
Oh, he took me here. He taught me this. He introduced me to this person. We stayed up all night discussing philosophy and his take on the African American experience was so difference because of his upbringing. He’s taking me to see his favorite play tonight. Ooh, I’m going with him to a private party.
I don’t get to tell those stories at all. All I get to write is how some guy met me adored me for a few minutes and then ignored me after that. What can I teach that’s positive about being single for 10 years?
I have to come up with something. I have grown as a woman but my mental state of growth doesn’t seem to be reflected in the way men treat me. Young or old, wealthy or not, they all seem to just throw me to the side.
What’s positive about being single for 10 years?
I’ve got to figure this out, because I know something awesome came from it.