take me home

Struggling to make a living, struggling to make a life

The women I worked with were incredibly complex, hard working, deep, struggling individuals. As a naive sixteen year old, I began working at the "Restaurant." These women had real-life struggles like alcoholism, spousal abuse and extreme economic struggle that put my young high-school dramas into an immediate perspective. Despite their struggles, they found it in them to love and support one another unconditionally.

When I first started working there, I didn't know what shoes to wear, so I wore my Converse. This was definitely an awful idea, as my feet burned that night after working hard all day long. I experimented with wearing different shoes every day that week, but nothing helped, my feet were so sore every night that I could barely walk. I iced my feet every evening that summer, and couldn't walk around barefoot because of the painful bruises on my heals. I was a young, healthy, strong teenager, and yet, was suffering. I cannot imagine how these women, these 40, 50 and even 60 something-year-olds do it.
Beyond my trivial physical pain, the women I worked with had problems far worse than mine. Two women were struggling alcoholics, and as a result, would often miss days of work. All the waitresses, cooks, and manager- who we called "Mama" - tried looking after them. It was so hard seeing a member of our family suffer so much. If I could help them in any way at the "Restaurant" I strove to. Be it refilling their waters, taking out food orders, we all tried to make their work life a little less stressful, because we knew of their deep struggles at home and internally.

image borrowed from: http://nimis540.files.wordpress.com/2008/08/holding-hands1.jpg
One of these women showed up to work one day with bruises on her arm. She told me, "Yeah, my boyfriend Jose beat the shit out of me over the weekend." I was speechless. Sure, I'd seen movies about spousal abuse, but never looked at a victim in the eye. All I could do was listen to her, feel for her and support her. This poor woman, forever friendly, sociable, supportive, and an excellent waitress had more to bear than I could possibly imagine. I don't know how she even made it to work every morning.