Note: This post was from my old blog. Ideas and beliefs were those of a much younger soul and may no longer be representative of who I am.
I can confidently say that my favorite person today was Raul, my waiter at IHOP, whom I had the pleasure of doing business with from 8:10pm – 9:30pm on Sepulveda & National. Please note that I began the day on the east coast, thus adding three extra hours to my day. So, out of 27 long hours, hundreds of people at the DC & LA airports, a trip to the gym, many texts with friends, and even a group chat with my family, Raul came in an undisputed first place.
Let me rewind. I flew home today from a quick trip to DC. Running again? Yea yea, get used to it. Somewhere between IAD and LAX in row 17 seat A, I had an epiphany. Blame it on the altitude, Rx pain killers from my orthopedist, or the unbearably anxious flight attendant who gave all menopausal women a bad name, but I decided it was time to make a real change. I’ve spent the last six months or so doing some serious soul-searching. And not the type of soul-searching where you buy interesting sounding books you’ll never read just to post pictures on Instagram and make yourself seem more enlightened, or the kind where you post a bunch of deep quotes in shittily-organized typography that have been screen shotted so many times that their resolution is totally corrupted and the ends of the words are missing due to repeated bad cropping… but the type where you literally can’t do anything without trying to understand why and what the deeper meaning is.
I have been trying to capture in words how it feels or what it means to look inward and try to understand who you really are, what makes you happy, what makes you tick, what you need in life, what you have been wasting time on, etc. It’s almost impossible to try to explain this concept to someone who hasn’t gone through it themselves. You can try, and they’re going to say some shit back that you almost buy, like “yeah, I really hit rock bottom when that mixed girl I used to fuck with left me for her wack ass ex, but then I dusted myself off and kept on pushin cuz I look better than him anyway” but if you’re one of US…. you’ll know they haven’t crossed over yet.
What I mean by cross over is that they haven’t begun their process of self awareness. I can honestly say I spent the first 27 years of my life with little to no self-awareness. I was so unaware that I wasn’t even aware that I was lacking self-awareness or that being aware of oneself was even a thing (get it?). Like I mentioned in my post about a broken heart, you need something to rock you to your core in order to make you stop and smell your own roses, both the not-so-cute roses you keep locked up inside you and those roses you proudly post selfies of on Instagram every day. Today, sitting at IHOP eating a 2 x 2 x 2, sipping a hot chocolate, and laughing out loud to myself as I began reading Gone Girl, I realized that this was the perfect analogy for self-awareness.
There are two types of people in this world: those that dare to venture into the International House of Pancakes alone at 8pm (and leave their phone at home) and those that would laugh at me for doing so, because they would never get caught dead in IHOP without (or even with, you bougie ass) company. At 7pm, I was part of group B. My craving for pancakes was undeniable but the idea of going to getting pancakes alone stirred up sheer terror in my hungry bones. After turning down my invite to the local IHOP, my least-friendly-advice-giving-friend Steve gave me a very terse, rude, and rough pep-talk like only a man could. Despite my indignation, I soon realized he was right- I could be part of group A. Why can’t I eat pancakes alone? So I said fuck it. I left my iPhone at the house, grabbed my book and my sketch pad and I went to IHOP. #bamf
You must think I’ve really lost it. That I think solo-dolo pancake eaters are somehow superior to those who actually have friends who live locally and want to hang out and eat pancakes together…. but hear me out. As Raul poured my second refill of hot chocolate, I realized that it takes a certain strength, self awareness, and contentment with oneself to do an activity that is typically done with someone else alone. I spent my whole day worrying about what was going on in the world with all of my friends, wondering why people don’t respond to my texts the way I want them to, being disappointed that I don’t have enough interaction with certain people, etc. But where in all that was me? When was the time and energy directed toward myself?
The answer is simple. It never was. And I was lost in a bunch of extracurricular nonsense that doesn’t actually matter and certainly won’t change the course of any time period in my life longer than an hour.
There’s this weird switch that goes off in your head the minute you start looking inwards. All of a sudden you can feel so much deeper and see so much more clearly. Yet all the while, you still don’t have the answers. I’m not so sure anyone does. But what’s important is that you’re looking, and you’re thinking, and you’re searching, and asking, ruminating, deducing… You’re taking action. I can’t tell you what I spent the last 27 years thinking about other than men, my social life, and my job. Somehow, I lived all those years without ever saying, “what’s going to ultimately make Helen happy?” and “how do I achieve that?” Its almost a rite of passage in a sense. It’s a huge step toward maturity. I like to ask people questions now, when I meet them, to see where they’re at with it. I don’t expect anyone to know the answers but I definitely want to be surrounded by people who are also doing the work.
If I had devoted even 25% of the time, attention, efforts, and emotions to myself that I have wasted on men over the years, there’s no telling what kind of woman I would be. How differently my career would look. What hobbies and skills I could have gained. If I gave 100% of that time, I’m almost positive I would be the female Ghandi, or at least the female Ludacris, depending on which avenue I pursued. So where did I miss the boat? Was this something I was supposed to learn from my family? Did everyone just innately know this was a step in life and I missed it? Or, is this the time I was supposed to climb on board? Now that I’m on starboard, it seems so obvious that this is the right path. And it seems to me that some people made it to the dock much earlier than me, and perhaps some have never even see the water. I have a feeling a few people I know won’t get there until the last ship has sailed (*cough*youknowwho*cough*).
I’m fascinated by self-reflection. I find that most people are afraid to talk about it, and I wonder if it’s because they don’t know what I mean or because it’s somehow taboo to feel openly. I think it’s one of the most crucial signs of maturity, next to being able to admit when you’re wrong, communication, and routinely washing your balls.
Raul was mature. There was something in Raul’s understanding eyes that told me he knew why I was at IHOP alone tonight, perhaps better than I even knew. He saw beyond the pancakes. Raul had done his fair share of self-reflection, and despite the fact that he was a late-night IHOP waiter, he had a certain happiness and spirit about him that I thoroughly enjoyed. He was the only person today that didn’t do anything to piss me off. And for that, I thank him.
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