What a night, abbreviated.

What a night.

Tonight was one of those nights where I ask myself the question "Why am I in the restaurant business?" Depending on my mood the answer always varies. Sometimes it is "Because I love making people happy." Sometimes it's "Because it's never boring!" But tonight the answer was "Because I have lost my damn mind and I am a complete idiot." 

Here I go..

It really is rather awkward trying to come up with the perfect way to start a blog.. At once I feel like I am speaking to millions of people (and I have always had an acute case of stage fright) and to absolutely no one at all, which leaves me feeling quite lonely.

I suppose I could begin with trying to explain why exactly I am starting this blog.. though I am not entirely sure of the reason myself. Since a young child I have always been pulled to Write. I started writing “books” when I was 10 or 11 that I would only let my cousin and best friend Graci read because I knew that she wouldn’t think I was weird because, well, she was weird, too. I never got past 30 pages with these masterpieces (though looking back, that really is quite a lot for a pre-adolescent), and most of them were pretty much about one of two things: dogs or a girl striving to make her way in the world, usually a runaway. I never really wanted to run away, my family is one of the most stable and caring families you will ever come across, but the idea absolutely fascinated me. The idea of being completely alone and independent.. But that’s not the point. The point is, some part of me loves to write and always has. I’ve kept journals periodically throughout my entire life – I remember my very first one, it had 101 Dalmatians on it and a little lock with a key that I always lost. When I was in 5th grade, my teacher gave me an extension on a story writing project not because I was behind and late but because I simply just couldn’t stop writing. I took all the creative writing classes I could in high school and loved them. In college, writing changed completely. I ultimately studied French and Anthropology, along with a hodgepodge of other classes, which kept me writing papers constantly.This kind of writing had to be academic and objective, which I actually did enjoy in an all-too-nerdy and sadistic kind of way. But all that MLA and APA style writing, mixed with working at the local hookah bar and good old fashioned partying left absolutely no time for any kind of creative or even journal-type writing.

So here I am, two years later, writing to no one and everyone all at once. A lot has happened in the past couple of years since I graduated with my fabulous French degree. I ended the most toxic relationship I have ever been in, started working at my family’s restaurant while trying to figure out what to do with my life, accepted my dad’s offer of a management position at that same restaurant, fallen in love with a great friend I’d lost touch with during said toxic relationship, gotten married to said great friend, bought a house with now husband, and somehow acquired 3 dogs along the way. My dad and I are getting ready to open a new restaurant together – a huge undertaking – and I suddenly feel compelled to write about all these things. So here I go…