Tuesday

Today is Tuesday.
     The second, or third day of the week, depending on which day you view as the beginning. Growing up, my parents viewed Sunday as the natural start of the week. What else would start off the week properly, apart from church book-ending the day? As an adult, things become a bit more complicated, when you aren't awoken by said parents, or sometimes even alarms. I have a day with no constraints? What's that like?

     Sometimes a week feels much longer. Recently my weeks have felt like more than seven days. Which begs to question: How much exhaustion can one fit into seven consecutive days? My answer from the past month or two: an exorbitant amount. It's as if the powers at play are conspiring to exhaust every fiber of my being, on a daily basis. 

     From work being exhaustively slow due to the summer months, and working for what seems to be a poor excuse for the 50+ hours logged. Or personal issues of selfishness and being comfortable where I am; to growing to become more open and less narcissistic. 

     I am weary. I am oh so weary. My insomnia has also been an all-too-familiar nemesis. It seems as if the more tired and exhausted I am, the stronger it's arms are to pull me out of a few paltry hours of sleep. It has been like this since college, all those years ago. I recall stories of people from my hall following me around and watching me get prepared for the day...at 4am. Although, I know insomnia and sleep-walking are vastly different, they do feel equal in certain ways. The waking, still tired and not feeling as if you've had an ounce of rest in between the openings of my tired eyes. 

     Thankfully, my sleep-walking has stopped, at least to my knowledge. I hope never again to wake in the morning finding my car haphazardly parked in the driveway, and wondering why the hell I had faint memories of wandering the halls of Wal-Mart. Not that I have a car to drive anywhere, at any rate now. Not to mention how I'm hardly coordinated enough to call a Lyft or an Uber, when I'm freshly awake. So, I doubt I'd be able to do anything but stumble around the house and into furniture, if sleepwalking presents itself all these years later. 

     Yes, Tiredness is a very close, yet unwelcome, friend of mine. He sits behind every cup of coffee I ingest, reminding me ever so gently of how little I'd slept the night before. He's there every night I get home from work next to my bed with it's multiple pillows and cozy Brooklinen sheets, taunting me. Holding out sleep as one would hold a carrot in front of a donkey. Almost there, but not quite.

     "Let me laugh at your overarching exhaustion, and tease you until you finally give up, and check your e-mail for the eighteenth time today. It may be five in the morning, but I really like to see you squirm," He says. That shadowed bastard has caused me more grief then my sexuality has, to my parents. 

     So, all this work has got me thinking. What am I doing now that will benefit me down the road? The answer is as convoluted and confusing as I see the time-space continuum. 

     Food. I have been in or around the kitchen since I was four years old. Helping mom with the wedding cakes she would make, or mostly eating the scraps the were cast aside. Baking banana bread, or cookies or spaghetti for my college friends and roommates. Culinary School. Excelling in every quarter, and gaining the favor of my esteemed chef professors (ProCheffers?), and being the envy of my peers. I love food. I have a deep connection to the culinary world. Which is also a bit strange when I think about it. I grew up in a lower-middle class family. The recipes that I recall from my childhood consist of very American food. For example; Chicken-Broccoli Casserole, Chicken Spaghetti, BBQ Chicken Nachos, Salisbury Steak, Spaghetti, Mashed Potatoes, Coconut Cream Pie, and a Sunday Pot-roast made with Lipton Onion Soup Mix. When we became a bit more successful, we even saw the occasional steak. And when mom was feeling a bit fancier and had a bit more time on her hands, Braciole. Hell, I even came up with my own recipe to chocolate-chip cookies that put me on some sort of cake-stand type of pedestal in church.
     I have been watching Chef's Table on Netflix in the wee hours of the morning. The newest season is all about pastry. The first episode is on Christina Tosi, who is an incredible pastry chef, get this; specializing in American Pastries. Gourmet pop-tarts, birthday cake cakes, and cereal milk panna cotta. Brilliant. 

     I absolutely love that. Taking things from every american's childhood, and reinventing them and creating something wholly new. While also bringing nostalgia to punch you in the face with memories of sitting in your cousins kitchen and eating Captain Crunch on a Sunday morning. Or that time I bought my brother four boxes of Pop-Tarts as a Christmas present, individually wrapped and in different sized boxes, of course. 

     Since childhood, my eyes have been opened to the vast differences of food between cultures. I never had much of that diversity growing up. The most multicultural meals I remember having would be when we went over to Grams and Pops' house. Authentic Goulash. Of course, they did come straight over from Austria or Hungary eons ago. 

     All that to say, I have a huge appreciation for food that I didn't experience growing up in Southwest Florida. I'd even go as far as to say that my curiosity has only broadened as the years have gone by. 

     Words. I have always been a bookworm. If you knew me in my childhood, on any given day I'd be holed up in my room, or on the couch with my nose in a book. Whether it was the newest young-adult fiction, or yet another Redwall book, or a cookbook, I always had mom telling me to go outside and "get some exercise, for crying out loud, Tyler". After much prodding, and threatening with even more chores, I would relent. 

     My brother and I ended up being blond haired, blue eyed, tan skinned Florida boys. Children of the sunshine. Lost Boys, whose home was the Hideout. A tree located on the canal across the street where the roots reached down towards the water. We added multiple 2x4's and created a janky fishing dock where we fiddled away our childhood afternoons with fishing and pelting each other with rocks and long sticks used as light sabers. And people wonder how I have such a thick skin. 

     I recently shuddered at some of the things I wrote back then. Fraught with misspellings throughout, and full of nonsensical banter between myself and my parents who I viewed as tyrannical rulers. How dare they only allow us to have two hours of TV time a day. The audacity. Didn't they know that I was a prodigy?
     No. I was eight. I was a scrawny little shit, who should have been grounded a lot more. 

     At least I had the book-worm thing going for me. Kept my mouth shut, and lived for time alone to read and enjoy the quiet. Letting my mind run wild and paint entire new worlds to which I escaped as often as possible. The beauty of poetry, and allegories printed on paper to be deciphered however one saw fit. I distinctly remember some of my groundings including no books. That was the worst. Keeping me from words. The crushing silence of my own thoughts. The sheer lonesomeness of being. I couldn't deal with being alone with my own thoughts, so I did whatever was necessary to get out of this torrid purgatory. At least I've come around to enjoying the silence. That is, unless it's time to sleep, then it becomes crushing, once again. 

     All this rambling has finally led to the point where I say what I am going to change about my life. This working and incessant exhaustion has led me to reach the desire to go back to school. Living and working in Atlanta is expensive. I've loved almost every minute of it. But the time has come to go back to my roots. The roots of the Hideout, or close enough. This fall I will be moving back to Florida. Southwestern, hot as a vacant field with no cover, Fort Myers, Florida. 

     This is certainly not my last move, but it is a big one. Moving back to Florida, to be with family and rekindle the tension and brotherly love. My thoughts on this move have just as many caveats as a tree has roots. Good and maybe not so comfortable things are in store, of that I am sure.  Yet, a degree is on the horizon. It will take work. And balance. Living with family will be an enormous change, and I hope a good one. I love my life in Atlanta. It has grown me in so many ways. Being more comfortable with my weird self, and surrounding myself with some of the best people probably on the planet. When I think about leaving, my heart aches. I know things will never be again as they are now. People grow, and change, and move away. Just look at me. Three years ago, a mere boy who moved from Chattanooga to experience the 'big city'. I like to think I've done well for myself. I'm self-sufficient, at least somewhat financially stable, and am surrounded with really fantastic human beings. But I want something more. I've been serving for what seems like an eternity, but ends up being only five or so years. My knowledge of food has grown exponentially. I've learned vast amounts about wine, beer, and cocktails. Due wholly to the friends that keep pushing me to learn more and be better at the whole 'service industry bullshit'. The podcasts also help. That, and my complete inability to stop absorbing every word with which I come into contact. I don't know what the hell I'll end up doing, but I am excited to see what finishing an English degree will bring my way. I'll land on my feet. I always have. Just like that little shit I used to be, I'm sure I'll come out on the other side swinging.