"Hi! Welcome, my name is Deziree I will be your bartender for this evening. Can I get you started with something to drink, our house-made lemonade? Handcrafted infused cocktail?"... five, sometimes six, days a week. For just about six years. I haven't been a bartender for six years, but I have worked for the same company, the same store, in the same town for a very long time. I started fresh out of high school. Worked my way up the ladder from a host to a part-time manager. I know the ins and outs of this restaurant. Although my team is great - my second family really - I've decided to step out of my comfort zone.
I've been climbing Mount Fear for quite some time now. If you know me... you know that I'm afraid of heights. I joke that God blessed me with being short, thankfully I'm closer to the ground. So about this mountain... at times it's been incredibly steep. Other times it's been like walking through the desert, in a dust storm, without water. Sounds pretty horrible now that I'm saying it out loud. Nonetheless, that's exactly how I felt. I had a dream months ago that I was climbing this mountain for what felt like hours on end. I reached the top and I wanted to hurl everything weighing me down over the cliff. I screamed. I cried. I fell to my hands and knees and felt meaningless and so afraid. I woke up with chills. I've been climbing the wrong mountain. I want off!!! The only way down is to jump. So I jumped.
Sometimes I want to sit in a dark corner and sob. I don't. I could, but what good would that do? I've been praying and thinking, trying to quiet my mind and heart to hear what God wants for me. And he keeps whispering to me. Trust me, Dezi, I'm here. I lose my breath in those moments. I've been fighting myself to let it all go. Until now that is. The notion that I've been solely responsible for my unhappiness is exciting and all too comforting. I've been sitting in that where I know this space so well that I remain unhappy to be "comfortable". Here is my sign. I'm falling into the unknown but I fully trust that God is there. To guide me and shelter me from whatever is to come. There's no structure, no clear plan after the next couple weeks. All I know is that I'm searching for what makes me genuinely and incredibly happy. I choose to believe there is room for everyone's ultimate happiness and that we live in an abundant universe.
By Elizabeth Gilbert's explanation in her book Big Magic, we shouldn't live against fear but with it, alongside it. Making space for every possibility has been the most difficult yard-work on my soul I've ever done. Fear will never go away, but to look it in the face and acknowledge that it's there and accept it for who it is has given me freedom. It's no longer a distraction but a sense of motivation. I'm afraid of not being good enough in my art, therefore I will welcome that fear, sit with it and say "I feel you fear, but this makes me happy and I'm gonna do it anyway". There's so much the world is willing to offer and opening up to that is such a beautiful challenge. I owe the universe my best self. So here it goes, life is about to change.
Love,
Dezi
Love,
Dezi
