Chaos Redefined

So...the title to my blog has begun to take on a whole new meaning to me. When I describe myself as negotiating with chaos, it is usually in regards to things going on in my own head...that chaos I create for myself.

Well, I am diving head first into a whole new definition of chaos now.

The chaos of two jobs. Two jobs that could not be more polar opposite from one another. I feel like, in the 15 minute drive down Broadway, I have to tuck my bleeding heart away, turn on my oh-so-proper and polite act, and switch over from passion-driven energy, to hard, cold, money-making motivation. It's a metamorphises of some kind that my mind and body is most certainly not used to. And I've noticed myself dealing with it in different ways. Yesterday, I shut down at the restaurant. I went through the motions of serving what looked to me like plates of money being inhaled by overindulgent Boulderites. I barely spoke, blamed it on being tired, my boss noticed. I couldn't shake the skin of the shelter and jump into the skin of L'absinthe fast enough to make it work.

Tonight, it went the opposite. I cried my way from one skin in to the next. I let the chaos roll through me, and found out, it's better that way. I shadowed a 6 am shift this morning, where I got to run into some of the regular residents and some of the situations I am going to have to learn to deal with on a regular basis. Turning away a young man who walked miles up hill for a plate of food, but was too late. Looking out the window and watching him take deep breathes and try not to cry. Turning away an older man because of alcohol related restrictions and seeing that he knew it was coming, and nervously tried to get in for breakfast anyway. Watching a previously perfectly coherent and able man suddenly forget what he was saying, and sputter out a trail of non-sensical, half sentences, that left even himself confused and alarmed.

Tonight I arrived at the restaurant slightly delirious from lack of sleep and coming down off of high-flying emotions. So I decided to lean on that and work with it. And it worked for me. I had my tables laughing, relaxed, and tipping well. Go figure, delirious, slightly out-of-it-Lauren pulls one of the best nights she's had in sales and tips. I'd like to keep her around. I don't know how long that's physically or mentally possible, but the overindulgent Boulderites seem to like her.

But I like the girl I am at the shelter more, or at least the girl I hope to be there. I'd rather dive head first into big and overwhelming situations that I may not be expecting or prepared for, and see where they take me. I'd rather put myself out there, and give the energy I do have to something that is going to soak it up. That way I know it's going somewhere, somewhere worth sending it, and I don't have to expect anything back. There is no anticipation of reward, or of mutual feeling or of returned effort. There is just plain and simple giving. That I am comfortable with, and that I am confident in, because there is always one constant...they will always be there. No matter where I am in the world, in my life, in my chaos, they will always be there. Those who need, those who will soak up what is given by those who will give it. It's an understanding. No other expectations involved. Some succeed, some change, some progress. Those are the exceptions, the "feel good" stories at the end of another long, heartbreaking newscast.

It's a new sense of chaos, one my mind is slowly wrapping itself around. I like it. I was told the other day, the shelter is an amazing experience and place to work, as long as I'm ready to "take the journey it will lead me on." I feel I've also been riding out the L'Absinthe guided tour into a whole world of people, ideals and values I wouldn't of touched with a 10 foot pole had I known it was where I was headed.

It all makes this weird, fuzzy sense to me. All the people, and the stories, and the contrasts and the circumstances. They all play off each other like the funny little blobs in a lava lamp. They merge and crash and bounce of each other, but all stay in this steady constant flow of unpredictability.

It all melts down to one solid piece in the end.







Let me know when Boulder starts to really "hippify" my concepts here... Lava lamp? It's late. Go with it.