timely endings.

I am sitting in the light of the evening, given by the twinkle lights above me, at my favorite nighttime coffee spot. I remember being here, not long before I went to Korea. I was talking to a friend and an acquaintance, and the latter of the two had just hinted at the fact that I was a "type A" personality. I was appalled. I have had such negative connotations in my head about...people...like that. My immediate reaction was defensive, and then I looked at my friend to back me up..."please correct him", I thought. Please defend me against just unjust and illogical accusations! He did not. 

The acquaintance just made his way through the door, and with him the memory of that conversation. And now, this evening, in the company of myself, I no longer care about what "type" of personality others say I have.

It's really busy here. In an unappealing way. My defense is headphones. Explosions in the Sky is currently drowning out the sound of college kids on Christmas break explaining in great detail to their missed friends exactly why they chose their major and the difficult class load they had to endure throughout the fall semester. That way of life seems so far off to me now. Sometimes I have to remind myself that I did, in fact, live it. Though I never found joy in explaining my major, as it was a default decision, and could be, in some schools of thought, labeled as a mistake...as I really just want to be a baker that listens to people and writes about the stuff she learns. That is something I am excited to tell people. But how would I have known that at the age of nineteen, when advisors and professors were warning me that it was necessary for me to choose something if I wanted to graduate? I wanted to graduate. That was never the question. I just didn't know what I wanted to do. 

I spent my first night of stay in the house of my great-grandmother last night, and as I walked to the bathroom down the hall to wash my face, I envisioned my now eighty-something year old  grandfather running through that same hall as a toddler, looking for a great place to hide during a game of hide-and-seek. I lathered my hands to wash the make-up off of my face, feeling thankful. My night of sleep was the most restful that I have had in a really long time.

I will spend my last day of work at the store of overpriced kitchenware tomorrow. It is a short shift, and I will be counting the minutes, as I have been counting the days since the very first one. I hadn't imagined I would hate it as much as I have, and I had no idea I could hate it as much as I do. It's funny trying to explain to people that don't get it just why I hate it so much...why working at such a beautiful store could be so demoralizing. Lessons have been learned, however, and as I walk out of the beautiful store tomorrow, somewhere around five-o-one in the evening, I will be feeling a celebratory sort of thankful. 

And I will ring in the new year with friends, and the feeling that my days make up my life, and how I spend them matters, and thankful that I don't have to spend any more of them, ever, selling stuff to people so that they can continue to amass things upon things, upon things.