...If The Shoe Fits (Karmic Return)...

...Last night I went to work at the same time I do every Friday night. I had my expectations and one of them was that my new shoes would be there. I had been wearing the same ones for almost three years, and although they look perfect on the outside, the inner heels had finally worn away. There is a specific kind of shoe a waitress has to wear, especially in places where there could be spilled oil and dressings and such.

...So entering the building, as I always do, I survey the condition of my "section", which is also always the same one every Friday night, "Section 1". I was fifteen minutes early, and to me that is very valuable writing or reading time, especially when I am alone, between home and work. It's a coveted time. I had forgotten that extra fifteen minutes, where I could have listened to my audio book "Her Fearful Symmetry" for another chapter or so. What made this realization dissolve was the voice of my friend, and manager, saying that my shoes had arrived. Did I want them now or later?

...The shoes are perfect in all ways. The shoes I wore to work went in the garbage at the end of the night after I briefly recalled something about the proper discarding of old shoes...What was it? It included burning the shoe so that you wouldn't repeat destructive patterns of the past in a pair of shoes that you perhaps walked "the wrong way" in. I thought that simply throwing them away in the place where I originally obtained them would have to do, especially after my last table of the night...

 ...Happy all night in my new shoes, I felt a sinking feeling when I saw "Them" arrive.  There are just some people that you KNOW are going to be completely abusive, have never waited on a table in their life and who couldn't give any more thought to my service than they do to the extra blue cheese dressing that is going to clog their arteries soon enough.

...I kept thinking to myself, "I have done this, I have attracted this...now make it stop! Make them go away!  Everytime I go back to the table they ask for another thing, or two."  That last part I said out loud, and it instantly became worse.  I paid attention.  Can I have more dressing?  Can I have more lemons?  Can I have more honey mustard, lemonade, a plastic cup, can we get ice cream now?  Can we have the check so that we can completely leave you not enough money for all the running around we gladly made you do? 

...Ah, so now I am wearing it.  I said it, and made it real,  I expected a horrible abusive ending with this group of people and I got it.  I shouldn't complain though, because I was most likely slated for a round of anger to pull me closer in, closer here to you...where I would undoubtedly come and reveal my revelation...

...I chose the job I do, because I was given an ultimatum.  I chose it because its the kind of job that you can walk away from such people, hold your tongue (with both hands) and walk away.  I am the one "serving" yet I am "slaving" - by choice.  I had to think of my two year old with his ear infection before saying, here - take your "change".  You need it more than I do.  Or, the many other colourful things going through my mind. 

...As I cleaned up around them, and then after they left, I asked myself several questions.  It always comes back to this.  WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?  I am "doing here" because I have chose to be a little complacent.  A little procrastinator.  A bit frazzled and a bit nervous...

...How do I recover? Has my karmic bank account balance fallen again?  Is there such a thing?

...So now its the morning after...and the light of day asks me questions and gives me answers that I have happily scribbled in my black gel ink handwriting, on pages no one will ever read outside my "room" filled with paper, paint, art and books...personal things that go on and on about how I love writing, how I must remain dedicated to the page, the process and the progress...

...In the light of day, I see what is more important, how writing extracts the lessons of morality to say, Yes, there is such a thing as Karma, and even if its only science - what goes up, must come down...what goes around definitely does come back around...and Nature never changes the way She works...Things go in a cyclindric cycle...and there are high and low points...

...The New Moon phase has started...what am I going to plant in the darkness? More seeds of the written word, of course...I am going to remember that "Everything" is a test, that my workplace is one of my major Karmic Soundboards, and that although I am very considerate, even to a fault, that everyone else has their own internal dialouge that may be deep or shallow, selfish or selfless, and that I should be more used to taking things so minor and low level (energetically speaking) less personally. Things like this remind me of that, and I am grateful.

...So, until next time,thanks for reading...and treat your food servers well!!! :) They carry more than your trays of food and drink and contrary to popular belief ~ they are somewhat smarter than a tack, or the job of being a good waiter/tress would be un-doable...

...Until next time...

Namaste'