Is there an answer, oh, honey?

I started out tryin’ to do what’s right
Lost it all in the middle of the night
If you’re wonderin’ what you should do with your life
Honey, if I knew I would tell you, wouldn’t I?

I’m feeling like I’m getting to a place of frustration. For so long I had it all mapped out, how life would be. I guess what they fail to mention in the user manual for life is that, you can make all the plans you want, it doesn’t mean that’s how it’s going to be.

As I sit here, 28 years down, who knows how many to go, I’m not where I thought I’d be.

I think lately, I’ve been taking a second look at every interaction with people, everything I do and say, looking for answers. Sometimes I wish I could just get a couple of answers, I don’t need to know all the future holds, that would ruin the surprise. I hate surprises. I just want to know where I go from here and what the road looks like ahead.

I think I learned that what I thought was right, and what’s actually right, are not the same recently, and that’s put me on this new path of trying to do what’s actually right, to be a better person, a better man, to everyone I cross paths with.

For almost 10 years I’ve been so sure of what I should do with my life, and this bizarre feeling of self doubt has been looming all week.

April 21, 2014. I stepped behind a bar for the first time and within seconds knew, that’s what I wanted to do. Not necessarily be behind the bar, but restaurants, hospitality, it’s all I’ve ever wanted to do.

As I gear up to go back to work, to the place that was home for some of the toughest months of my life, to the place that kept me afloat when I felt like I was drowning, I wonder if going back is the right move.

I’ve been presented with this new opportunity to go work at a small local business, and I’d be the boss, I’d get to decide when I work, what I do, all of it, that sounds so soothing, sounds like I’d finally be able to breathe again. Then I think about the chaos that ensues on Alcove during game night and I think about how calm I feel when I’m surrounded by a couple hundred people trying to get drinks and food before they go root for their sports team, or see their favorite artist or comedian. I think about how when I’m behind the bar I’m my true self. The self I don’t know how to be without that barrier between me and the people. I’m loud, I’m fun, I show off, it’s the best I feel. Don’t get me wrong after doing it for 12 hours you really wanna crawl into a hole and be left alone, but being behind the bar is the only way I know how to be out going, and my slightly extroverted self. I like the energy, being around people, being the person putting on the party. I can host the party, but as a guest my skin crawls.

I think I’m a bit more lost than usual as to what to do about going back to where I felt like I belong or moving on to something new because of a conversation I had with someone today.

I don’t know this person well, hell I don’t know this person at all, but for a moment throughout our conversation, I felt like myself again. I felt hope and enthusiasm.

I’m still not sure what I should do with my life, so I ask again,

Is there an answer, oh, honey?

Where the skies are gold not gray,

J.