cut out for it
the dogs have taken over my bed. which is fine. it’s not like i’ll be sleeping any time soon anyway.
today, shook me. which is saying something, because it takes a lot to shake me up. so congrats on that november 29th, 2011. a couple days ago i was going to blog about how no one was awake late at night. that fact is never more apparent than it is today.
for roughly the past 2 years i have worked in hotels. it’s the field i studied in college, it’s the major i got my degree in, it’s what i thought i wanted to do. most of the time. there were days when i listened to my professors and wondered,
am i cut out for this? do i even WANT to be? but then i got in to it. my first hotel was as simple as could be. we had rooms. we had breakfast. we had phones, we had an outdoor pool that was only open during the summer (for obvious reasons) and we had me. it was simple, they took advantage of my willingness to work, but it worked. i would have considered staying, but minimum wage and no real future didn’t seem like what i had been working toward with my degree. i wanted the whole shebang, but at the same time i still wondered in the back of my mind am i cut out for this, do i even want to be?
so i left. that was it. i went home, found a job and settled in. even early in, i had my doubts. we had these students, at our hotel, and they were awful. but then, things got better. i started getting more responsibility, started dating a girl i worked with, and then it got to be wintertime. the boss that had hired me had left. jumped ship for greener pastures, and her job was open. i something happend and then i think i AM cut out for this. i do WANT it. the next months saw a boost in my confidence. a boost in my self assurance.
then, as soon as that came, it was de-railed. new people were hired, and i again questioned it. am i cut out for this?
cut back to today. it takes quite a bit to shake me. takes quite a bit to knock me down. takes quite a bit to rattle me. but today, today did. today, for the third time in the year and a half i’ve been at my current hotel, someone threatened to kill themselves. i’ve been around for two other instances, but for some reason, neither of them hit me the way this one did. the only reason i can think of that it shook me so much more is that this wasn’t some stranger i’d never met. this wasn’t someone who was nothing more than a room number. this gentleman had been in our hotel for a week and a couple days. i’d spoken with him, met him, and to an extent, knew him. i’d spoken with him earlier in the night even.
what the HELL dude!? we held your keyboard. you were in our bar! you’ve been our guest for like a week and half!
whether or not he had ever actually intended to do it, it was still enough to rattle me. and that voice of doubt in my mind began to shout a little louder - i don’t know if i am cut out for this.
it’s hard to answer phones when one of the last phone calls you took was someone threatening suicide. it’s hard think about going to work when all you can think about is what’s going to possibly go wrong next. it’s hard to silence that voice that says you’re not cut out for this! when the only other noise is fingers on the keyboard, and your computer trying to explode. it’s hard to think that there are people who don’t want to live when you can’t think of doing anything but living.
so maybe i’m not cut out for this. maybe what i studied wasn’t what i should’ve. maybe i’ll wake up tomorrow (although it’s technically today) and this won’t bother me.
maybe i’ll wake up and feel less sure of myself than i do now.
maybe, it just doesn’t matter. i’m young, stupid, irresponsible, and i’ve got many years in front of me to be all of those things (god willing). i’m not locked down. and even if i’m not cut out for this. i’ll find my way. one way or another.
