Five Years Ago

time sure flies when you're spending all day on Instagram 

Five years ago I was working at a job that was slowly killing me. I'm not exaggerating here, if I had stayed in that job much longer, I was going to kill myself. Okay, that's a bit dramatic, and not entirely accurate; I was much more likely to kill someone else. If one more employee approached me about their lactose intolerance, asking what I was going to do about the milk situation in the kitchen, or sent me down to the loading dock to pick up a package that was almost always a personal item they ordered while shopping online at work, I was going to remove a shoe right then and there and stab them with my high heel in the middle of the office. 

Somehow in the middle of all these pressing duties, I found myself drawn to the idea of going back to school. I was debating between my two greatest passions: food and literature. I had been accepted to a masters of library science program and was almost set on the idea of grad school. The real wrench in my plan was the cost of the program, so more out of curiosity than actual interest, I began looking at some culinary programs in the area. Culinary school was out, for the same economical reasons, but I found a decent program at the community college near our house that offered what I wanted. Interesting.

Deciding between two of your favorite things is not an easy choice. I researched both career paths and talked the ear off of Brent and my sisters. In the end, food won out, coming as a complete shock to absolutely no one. If you asked my parents when I was a little girl if they ever thought I'd become a cook, they probably would have shrugged. If you had asked them what I enjoyed doing as a little girl, they would have had a much more confident answer: eating. More specifically, birthday cake and cookies. As an adult today, being able to make (and snack on) large quantities of birthday cake and cookies is a dream come true. 

Five years ago I could tell you how unhappy I was at work, regale you with complaint after complaint of a day spent on mind-numbing tasks that were slowly crushing my soul. Five years ago I saw my life stretched out in front of me and it bored the shit out of me. Five years ago I was just a girl, standing in front of a copier, asking it to collate for her.

In April of 2013 I mustered up the courage to do something about my boring, miserable work environment. Once accepted to the program I wanted, I gave my notice and the middle finger to the corporate world. Hasta la pasta, suckers, see ya never! (except in a few years when I come crawling back to cubicle life for a few months while I have a minor breakdown) 

It's crazy to think that April marks five years of me working in kitchens. Five years is longer than high school, or undergrad, or most Hollywood marriages. Maybe it's not much in the grand scheme of your career, maybe it's a drop in the bucket, maybe I'll change my mind in five years and do a total 180. But for the past five years I've been doing work that I'm proud of, that isn't killing my spirit, that sometimes even excites me. And I'm going to keep doing it until it doesn't.