Bite life.

written in a secret place, 2 years ago.

“I tend to settle. It’s a fault I’ve have carried with my conception, I’d like to think. I was late to be born; a week and half, to be exact. I probably didn’t mind the apartment I was in and didn’t really feel like committing to a drastic and sudden location change. It’s my nature. I settle and branch as far as I can horizontally before reaching upward. Some call it a lack of drive, I call it careful planning for my glorious future as a rich sonovabitch.

The idle nature progressed to simple procrastination as I aged. I had enough energy to spare; what with an ADHD diagnosis at age 12 and a higher metabolism than a dog-eared lab rat scouring a maze for a morsel of cheese while being probed with forceps or worse. The problem was focus.  You could see it when I was given the task of getting the hell out of my mother’s hair and going outside. I would high-tail it out there and within the hour, I was covered in scrapes, bruises, bleeding from somewhere, laced from head to toe in God only knows what and a toothy grin from ear to ear. On the other hand, getting me to do school work was like pulling teeth from a grizzly bear. I fought, yelled, lied, faked tasks completed with last weeks worksheets; anything to get out of it all. The only classes I gave two shits about were music and English. They were my creative draws, the things that kept school interesting for me. And when culinary arts was introduced? I had watched enough PBS to know that culinary arts meant sharp objects, hot stuff and eating. I was game. Anything that endangered myself and people around me was something I would dive into head on. After 20 or so hospital visits for my injuries, it was evident that I was destined to die one of three ways: impaled, burned or crushed. No slow-going heart attack for me. 

So now, a high school graduate and 3 1/2 years of college under my belt, I find myself settling again. I’ve settled to take a year off of school to work and pay off debts. I’ve settled on teaching myself as much about the culinary world as I can through TV, books and blogs. I’ve settled with the idea that I wasted those 3 1/2 years of shitty education in fields I would never want to enter just because I was too scared to do what I wanted. I’ve now settled my way into a lovely hole dug by debt, a lack of self-image and a whole lot of spoiling from inheritance. I’m waiting, a sitting duck, hoping that planning as I idle in first gear is the best route for me. My goal is Le Cordon Bleu in Pasadena, CA.
My fears are tangible and are truly holding me back.

After 22 years, I’m done idling.”

I made it here. I am, for lack of a better word, surviving. Still no school, still no better off that I was, besides the dent made in my debt. I’m in California, I’ll give you that much, 22 year-old self. But almost 2 years ago, you sounded so optimistic, so driven towards a better life. So why am I still in the same place, just different scenery? What didn’t translate? Maybe the fear was too much. I am almost 24 years old and I want, trulywant, a complete higher education. I can feel the synapses structure of my brain tumbling down around my ears without the slightest hint of slowing. I feel dumb. Just…dumb. I shouldn’t have left school, I know, but when you’re broke, sad and lost, it seems right: a break. Now I’m so used to the work and the rhythm of it all, I don’t know if I can drop the act and go back to education.

But it’s school, not a death sentence. Sure, I’ll be married and still in college, but there are thousands of individuals in that situation. I shouldn’t hold this stigma of the returning student.

I believe the main reason I haven’t is because, even though I love cooking and being in a restaurant setting, I don’t know if that is REALLY how I want to spend the rest of my life. I get this amazing shot at a second chance and I want to get it right. I’m afraid of failing… again. But I’ve always been that way”start something, get bored with it half way through and then poof! “What was I doing?! Ooooooh who cares…NEW THING”.

Must. Find. Discipline.
…and stop growing horizontally.

24, you will be a challenging year.