Keep me up with your silence
Take me down with your quiet
Of all the weapons you fight with
Your silence is the most violent

Tell me how to feel about you now
Tell me how to feel about you now
Oh, let me know
Do I suffocate or let go?

I’ve found a red flag about myself. I lack optimism. I’ve wanted to write a blog for days, but the days have been good, and good days don’t inspire me to write.

We’re coming up on 10 years that I’ve worked in the service industry. In that time I’ve had 3 mentors. My brother was the first. Tom Mastricola second. Tom Schelinger-Guidelli third.

My brother left the industry, and with that, left as my mentor. Tom Mastricola moved to California, but we keep in touch and I still consider him a mentor. TSG called me this past Tuesday for the first time in over 9 months. He called to tell me I’m welcomed back to alcove, but if I come back he will no longer mentor me anymore. I was crushed to hear that, but when he explained why I was even more crushed. Through this whole anxious agoraphobic battle, the one constant was always a fear of letting him down, of allowing him to feel like he can’t trust me, or giving up on me. He told me he was hurt with how everything played out. Once I was out on medical leave I only contacted Human Resources. I never called TSG to say I was okay, and I was doing the work. I never texted him to check in. I thought that could cause potential liability for him and I never wanted to put more on him than I already had. He’s a busy guy, and he used to make so much time for me, tell me secrets, and ask me the important questions to help me advance my career. He was like Tom Mastricola, but with an edge to him. Both of these guys changed my life, permanently. I could never repay either for what they’ve done for me. And now it feels like at 28 I’m starting over.

Back to hospitality, but without a mentor. Tom can’t mentor me from California, because it’s just not the way mentorship works in this business. TSG is too hurt to go back to mentoring me.

It makes me not want to return to alcove for two reasons. First, I can’t imagine not having the relationship I had with TSG anymore, and what our new one would look like. Two I was there for him, it’s why I applied, it’s why I took the job, it’s why I jumped in with both feet. I knew he wasn’t always right, and sometimes was a real asshole to people, but I knew he could teach me the things I wanted to learn, and give me the tools to have fun, autonomy, and confidence.

Letting people down is the worst feeling I’ve ever felt, and if I knew it would have ended up here, I would have continued to suffer, continued to have panic attacks, continued to harm myself, have suicidal thoughts, I would have stayed in the awful place I was in mentally, if it meant TSG would be my mentor today. Unfortunately you can’t live in the past, and you can’t change it.

I don’t know where I go from here, but what I do know, is I would have continued in that suffering, in that awful place, if it meant I wouldn’t have hurt someone I care so much about.

To quote the bear “No amount of good is worth how awful this feels.”

As I go out each day, panic free, feeling safe, feeling inspired. I come home each day and don’t feel fulfilled. And now it feels like all the work, medication changes, therapy, and hell I’ve gone through the last 9 months, was for fucking nothing.

Oh, let me know
Do I suffocate or let go?

Where the skies are gold not gray,

J.