Twenty-one years later, I understood I wasn’t born to be a line-chef.
The realization hit me on an unusually busy Monday night. Tickets printed, I began to sweat. The salad I just sent out looked sad, the arugula far from perky. I prayed for the night to just be over.
It was then, in the midst of fryer grease and shredded carrots, I discovered I hated something, I thought my whole life, I was bound to become.
At some point in my growth, from a wee thing to a much larger one, I realized that I was not the only blame-shifter in this world. In fact, it is practically bursting with people who will go out of their way to escape the burden of responsibility. It’s a natural response to want to avoid the consequences of your actions but it’s this response that makes cowards of us all.
Read MoreThe concept of spending 24 hours alone, in the woods, at age 11, with nothing but my tent, water, clothing and a journal, never crossed my mind as odd. Then again, I was homeschooled and, thankfully, unaware of what was socially “acceptable” at the time. I am exaggerating slightly when I say alone, but as J.R.R. Tolkien writes “Good stories deserve a little embellishment”. There were several other young women scattered throughout the forest as well as mentors to keep an eye on us. But, in my young mind, it was the loneliest I had ever been.
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