Open water.

I thought I was okay.

I mean, I felt okay. I actually felt better than okay, I felt good.

But then I started doubting myself, because that’s what you do when you don’t quite believe you deserve happy endings.

“Are you okay Elan? I mean, are you really okay?”

And then I started to replay the conversation over in my head, instinctively looking for reasons not to be okay. Like, I couldn’t trust these feelings of contentment.

And then I came to the conclusion that I was not, in fact, okay.

Like a plague slowly permeating my subconscious, my brain went into overdrive, overthinking every comment, every word, and of course every potential insinuation in the way it was said.

It was a conversation I’m terrified of having. The conversation that goes on between a boy and a girl who both like each other but are seemingly stuck in the “is this going further?” phase.

Historically, this is where things fall apart for me.

Either I don’t get this far, or when I do get here, my feelings aren’t reciprocated and it’s the last conversation I ever have with him. You can imagine my hesitancy for these chats, and my mentality as I intuitively anticipate the worst.

So, as I go down the rabbit hole of no return, I take everything I just heard and accepted into my heart, and I begin to nitpick it all. Like, I can’t quite believe that the boy likes me back and enjoys where we’re going.

It’s a horrible habit, I know. But a part of me is driven by the past. With the baggage of past heartbreak weighing heavily on my shoulders, I go into survival mode in an attempt to armor my heart and soften the flow of what I expect to come.

In this case though, I’m self-sabotaging. Instead of “protecting” myself, I’m prohibiting myself from potential. Potential for something more with him.

As eager as I am to jump into what I assume I want (a relationship), I’m also equally as nervous and naïve, and part of this insecurity has to do with the fact that I don’t have experience beyond this point.

And so I fall back into my safety net of not believing someone likes me back. Because that feeling.. I know how to navigate. But going forward with a guy that actually reciprocates my feelings? That’s open water and all of a sudden I’m scared to swim.

So I sit here, and choose to perseverate over the situation instead.

But I’m tired of doing so. Not only is it mentally taxing, but I’m placing unfair expectations on him and I will forever be disappointed. I really need to enjoy the process of what we’re doing.

With that, I’m taking a deep (and I mean DEEP) breath and letting these thoughts go. I’m trusting my initial feelings of contentment and I’m going to go with the flow, as it carries me out into that open water…

Improving the groove.

How do you handle the repetitive nature of typical barista work?

The question lingered awhile. Stopped me in my tracks because there I was, on an ordinary afternoon working on a document that ironically, I had chosen to work on to switch things up.

How fitting!

I was updating an interview questionarre for work, one of many files I’ve pulled out of dusty hiding to improve. See, between the downward slump of the winter season and its effect on a small town, and the still present health crisis, I’ve had a lot of ample time at the coffee shop.

Faced with this abundance of downtime, I’ve gotten creative with passing the hours, trying to handle the monotony of making cup after cup of coffee with productivity and optimism.

Now granted: I am not your typical barista. After years slinging espresso and slowly working my way up, I went from 15 year old minimum wage barista to the top: management. Here, I’m at the helm of change and improvement, so while I don’t necessarily follow the same protocols as any old barista, I still find myself occasionally getting trapped in the same routine and mundanity of the job.

We’ve all been there, amiright?

But this doesn’t just apply to work, oh no. This pertains to all aspects of life.

Which begs the question: how does one handle the repetitive nature of life itself?

You’ll remember that I just had a week off. And luckily, it was only just a week. It could’ve been much longer, or worse yet, it could have meant the total termination of my job, which isn’t such a far fetched concept in our current unemployment crisis.

So when I came back to work, I felt rejuvenated and grateful to even have a job at all, and it was with this new perspective and appreciation of time that I found myself working on this quesionarre in the first place, which led me straight to the question of how to handle life’s repetitiveness.

Let’s get this straight: I think there’s nothing wrong with routine. I think why it has such a bad rap is because people perceive and therefore execute it with the wrong attitude. The difference between those who follow routine and are unhappy as a result and those who follow routine and find joy and self-satisfaction in doing so, has to do with approach.

Routine is inevitable, patterns are unavoidable. But to steer clear of getting sucked into the day to day “typical” work, one has to face the groove with optimism, striving to complete the most mundane with excellence and pride.

It’s about finding the positive, being open to accepting that there’s a chance for growth in every opportunity, and making ordinary tasks extraordinary.

Just like the saying “not every day is a good day, but there’s good in every day”, I truly believe and practice what I can to get the most out of each day; and on this occasion, it was found in figuring out ways how to handle the repetitive nature of typical barista work.

And look what it taught me.