27
October 2002
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Y'all. I am drizzunk. It's about 3 a.m., or really 2 a.m., thanks to the time change, and I just got home from a night out - working and drinking. I closed dinner for my friend Melissa who was just "not feeling it" tonight and after I got out I went across the street to The Pub to meet up with them. (Because as I kept telling everyone "There's an extra hour of naughty time!") Kitchen Boy said he might come over, but alas, he did not. A little bit after 1 a.m. the place started filling up with Emory kids. All the girls were decked in Seven jeans and the boys were dressed in their Polo best. If I closed my eyes and sent myself back four years, I could almost convince myself that I was in Saloon, with Pony and Kim and we were doing the scene. Cruising to see who was there and what was what. Drinking Mind Probes and being our little college girl things. These kids tonight, they took me back, and made me realize how far I've come, and how far I've gone. I'm not 21 anymore. I can't make it happen in little jeans and tank top. I'm not cute and the world isn't open to me in quite the same way. I sat there in my dirty-from-actual-work denim and my Steakhouse t-shirt laughing with my coworkers and ragging on other comrades, but my eyes were averted, watching the Emory Elite, memorizing their laughs and hair flips. Letting myself remember when I was them. But now I'm here and I'm this - a 26-year-old waitress who sometimes works 10 days in a row just to accumulate enough fives and tens to pay her rent. An old woman whose feet and back hurt after a day of doing laps around a restaurant balancing trays and salads. (And whose carpal tunnel is kicking in, let me tell you.) But I'm also a single girl in her mid-20s who feels completely free, and who hasn't been this happy in a very long time. T's parents were in town last weekend and her father asked me how I was liking Atlanta. For a half a second I thought, what an odd question, but then it hit me, that although it may feel differently, I haven't lived here all that long. So I just smiled and told him that I love it. My six month anniversary as a Atlantan passed me by without much notice. It wasn't until I counted out the months on my fingers that I realized that I've been here for half a year. And I'm not doing what I assumed I would be, but I guess that's because I didn't really have a clear picture of what I wanted to do once I got here. I was so focused on just getting here. And now I'm here and I'm trying to figure out where I belong and what I want to do. And right now I'm doing this, trying on a different way of life just for pretend (because I know that I'm lucky enough to not have to make it permanent) and really, I'm having a hell of a time.
The notify is happy too.
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