New Year's Day

36x36 Acrylic/ Canvas/ Glitter/ Resin. Ready to hang

On Christmas day, I worked from 2-11, and in my delirium in the dark that night, I ordered myself a pair of the fancy shoes that some of my colleagues wear. My $25 Walmart shoes had wrecked my feet. Pain like that sneaks up on you. It’s normal but a little less bearable each day, until suddenly it’s Christmas for everyone in a packed room except for you and the people you work with, whom you’ve gotten to know. Instead of focusing on the pain of the holiday magic feeling ruined in the name of one added day on a corporate P&L, I guess I focused on my feet. 

On New Year's Eve, I worked from 2:30 to 1:30, but my new shoes had arrived, so I was optimistic. And I’ve dropped an entire pants size, so that was exciting. San Diego loses its mind when it rains. The drive downtown was stressful; clearly, everyone had started doing their holiday coke and was driving through a downpour in a frenzy. I made my way through the parking lot and the sidewalk up to the back door, all with so much water on the ground it had created a current. 

The instant I stepped into the trash room/ back elevator, my shoes were covered in grease. As I slid across the floor 5 feet, a ghastly realization knocked the wind out of me. In my exhaustion on Christmas, I somehow didn’t order the slip-resistant version of my $200 shoes. And now I had only these shoes to wear. On New Year's Eve. And my section was in the farthest corner of the restaurant (I did 21K steps that night).

Every step I took, I thought I would slip and fall, especially in the dish pit. I lift a lot of heavy things, and my body was so tense all night that I could barely move. In my life, all of my dreams have come true. My art is loved.. it lives amongst families on most continents. My book is published, I have speaking engagements with opportunities to sell my book lined up throughout the year. My marriage is happy, and everyone is healthy. I’m a hell of a yoga teacher. I made it to the ocean. Clean, well, grateful, and alive. This is not lost on me. 

But in my life, I never imagined all of my dreams coming true and me still in a dish pit. Still taking orders with a name tag on. I never imagined that I’d be opening my monthly book royalties statement email while eating a plate of fries in a server station and wearing a tie. Or that my first and last name would be posted up on the wall every week because the people I wait on have the opportunity to let everyone know what it’s like to live in their head based on our interaction. Ultimately, their angry opinion about the cheesecake recipe reflects on me. Or maybe I still internalize other people's negativity and think that I could have just been even more perfect, they would have been nicer. (My life lesson that never lessens.)

I’m grateful for my job. It’s a good job with good people. I make insane money for the amount of time I’m required to be there, and when I leave, none of it comes home with me. 

But the whiplash of it all has taken some getting used to. 

Writing my memoir was a mountain I climbed. Living my experiences, healing from them, teaching myself to write for 20 years, finishing the first draft, the entire year of editing every single day, then trying to query, starting a publishing company, formatting the book ourselves, and putting it out into the world. To be honest, I never even let myself enjoy those accomplishments. I was too wrapped up in the fear of the story being in the world, and exhausted from the momentum that it took to get it there, as well as simultaneously trying to survive in Southern California on art sales and yoga classes. 

When I got to the top of the book release mountain, all I saw was another mountain. A marketing mountain. And I kind of gave up. Social media has drastically changed. It’s all noise, and it’s all people hard-selling either disgust, fear, conspiracy or products. I had no idea how to market my traumatic story of healing in that kind of a loop. I made content every day for five years and I was done. 

Back to my banger of a NYE shift last night. I’m still pretty on edge on a specific curve on the 5 South freeway late at night. I saw somebody die right next to me years ago in an accident there and I’ve never gotten over it. At 2 am in the still pouring rain on NYE, of course, three people smashed their cars up badly on the S curve. The rain poured, the traffic stopped. We all just sat on the freeway for 20 minutes, the red, white and blue lights and smoke reflecting in the rain. 

The song Seventeen by Sharon Van Etten came on and I was taken back to going to my first lived experience panel for trafficking awareness and violence prevention with my book in October. Listening to this song on the plane and imagining 17-year-old me seeing me today. Knowing I looked like the real deal because for the first time in my life I knew I was. Learning over and over that experience is experience, and experience isn’t always the truth about who you are at your core.

The way I cried on that panel when the line wrapped around the room for people to buy a signed copy of my book. The way one of the detectives at the seminar reminded me of my Dad, gave me a ride to the airport and told me he was so proud of me. He bought a copy of my book for his 13-year-old daughter. Said maybe my story would keep her safe in a way he couldn’t as my eyes caught the gun in the holster on his hip. The way that when I looked out into the crowd of people at that conference, I imagined that every single one of them was Nancy, my late mentor. 

When the traffic finally started to move again, I got home, kissed my husband, and ate a scrambled egg before I passed out. Life is always beautiful when the shift is over and the capacity to recount my money is greater than my capacity to recount negative and exasperating interactions. I wonder often if my nervous system will ever heal from 80% of the interactions I have on any given night. 

I woke up to a voice note from Chantel, one of my favorite content creators. She’s nearly done with my book. She says it’s so good, that she’s so blown away by it, and after I told her how hard this year has been, she shared with me something her husband always says..

It’s “just stay the course. Stay the course. You are exactly where you’re supposed to be.” 

I can’t tell you how much I needed to hear that. I’m not trying to sit here and tell you nice things that happened to me all year and nice things people said just to be like that. I’m writing this to remind you and likely convince myself that sometimes real, humble expansion requires you to go back to where you’ve already been. I don’t know why yet. My husband says it’s like Donkey Kong. “You have to go back to the previous levels every time you level up, because you’re supposed to recognize what is happening. You have to learn the first levels over and over to prepare you for the higher levels.” 

Occasionally I can still sit down and paint a picture. It’s almost a frantic feeling, like something has to get out of me and it’s my responsibility to show up to the canvas for that to happen. I no longer make art with the background thought of how it will photograph or sell. Painting and yoga are my sanctuary for self-reflection instead of something I’m trying to conquer again. My crazy job on my feet in the wrong shoes gives me that freedom. And it’s on me for ordering the wrong shoes. 

I don’t remember many New Year's Days of my life. A cracked out one trying desperately to find ONLY olive juice for sale without the olives in a grocery store (it doesn’t exist.) One year, my friend handcuffed herself to some guy at a bar and the key was at her (very strict) parents' house in the suburbs. There was a rave in Los Angeles and a crazy cover band in the suburbs where I waited tables. Meditations and early yoga classes. Maybe a brunch. But not many. 

Maybe I’ll remember this one as a pop of color, unexpected sparkle, and the sky still being the limit if I just stay the course. Maybe this painting is a portrait of the message I need.