i keep waiting for something to happen, and its always a very specific thing once i get a job once i get a car once im out of school once i have money saved up once i have my braces off once i’m 18 once i’m back in colorado but every time i complete the next thing, i always find another thing to wait for. now its once i’m 21, once i can go to bars and clubs but….. shit dude that’s 2 fucking years! i’m so tired of waiting for my life to shape up for me to blossom into this social butterfly, i’m so tired of not having anyone to talk to, i’m so tired of all the friends i want to hang out with being in different states, 3 hour drives, i don’t know how it happened, but somehow all my friends left this place, and i feel like if i tried to, i would still be alone. i miss college and being able to just come up with friends, oops, here i am, made a friend. and i hate that now that i’m done with it, i envy all the people still with their friends in college, and i wonder if it will be the same for them, graduation coming around,and all of the sudden, everyone is gone, living their own lives, in different states, more worried about work than hanging out, but suffering because of it like i am, culinary school was weird, especially how i did it, 7 months with these people i just met, in an accelerated class, 4 hours of my day gone to commuting every day, only having time for school, homework, and sleep, i had passion for what i was learning, still do though it manifests its self less than school, then at the end of it all, no one went to denver, not even me, a whole externship in this foreign place, where everyone lived within a 10 minute walk anywhere close, and a 2 hour bus ride to the nearest Kmart. sure, i was immature, sure i probably pushed away people more than i thought i was, and maybe my standards were a little high for what i wanted in a friend there, but i dunno i guess i was expecting a different crowd of people the most notable people in my life turned out to be a drug dealing sous chef, a head chef who couldnt outcook the worst extern we had, the worst extern, claiming to be not “too cool for school” but “too thug for work” a fat black girl with a bad weave who got drunk and almost got arrested, plus here flying monkeys who will do whatever she says, a stupid stoner who hit on girls while his girlfriend was back home (love that guy though), 2 kids in love, but who had to go back to different continents, a dirty hobo looking guy who showered once every 4 days, an old balding sous chef who specialized in soup, and another old gray haired sous chef who sold an over easy egg with a really over hard side then there was me. the most notable thing i did was spend like 400 on food one day. alone. on my birthday. i guess i should be used to this kind of loneliness by now, i never really had friends, and if i did, i always felt weird about them (except my school friends because they sympathized with my passion for dining out) but i dunno i just have this ideal picture in my head, of me owning a little apartment downtown, a couple futons, and a bottle of moscato, a bottle of pinot noir, all the things my refrigerator has to offer and a really good cake. about 6 people are ther, sharing with me and laughing with me, we’re talking about all the people who couldn’t make it due to work, we’re watching a good old movie but talking more than we are paying attention and as the night continues, someone i love walks through the door, and we all stay up really late, and sleep on the lumpy futons i have this vision of my life as it should be, and i just….. don’t understand how to even begin to make it real. i feel like it isn’t even who i am, isn’t even who i could be i dont know how to talk to people, i dont know how to be an adult, i don’t know how to keep, or even make friends, and worst of all, after i left school, i started to feel like i couldn’t cook. i blame it on WY a lot, but then i do my usual internalizing and start to blame myself. "come on cisco just because you had no good authority doesnt mean ypu couldnt have made the bast of it" "just because it was hard to find quality doesnt mean you should have lost the sense of what quality is" "you didn’t try hard enough" over and over and over and over until i want to scream and become nothing. Wyoming was bad to me sure. but i wasn’t worthy of Wyoming. it especially fucked me up that the one person i went to school with and came up with me criticized my every move, i admired him in school, i felt equal really, i felt like family, in a large part because he called me family. but also because we went to school together, he saw me at my best, he knew who i was, he was there when my passion was, and to have him bring me down at every single thing i tried. well. it certainly didn’t feel good. that’s for sure. and i try to let that sting, i try to let that just be that, i try not to be critical back, i try not to point out in my mind that half the time he showed up to work he was drunk, the other half stoned and hungover, i try not to say that i became a swing cook, while he became a production cook, i try not to point out that i was trusted with every position in the kitchen, while he was put at production, i try not to do it but i do. i do. and with all the force in the world he tells me its because im not good at anything, that i am still in the process of finding a decent place and i am furious. i am furious because he says it as if i have not already thought it but i have. i have questioned my entire being in Wyoming i have questioned every life choice because here i am, my culinary school friend drunk and fallen down a flight of stairs, telling me that i am shit. you are my family i love you and i think you will be a good cook one day but now? you are shit. slow. sloppy. dumb. not trying hard enough. im glad im in colorado now, i really truly am, i work in a supportive atmosphere, im fast, or i think i am, i do some things better than people who have been there years, i got in at a good time, people are transferring locations, i can move up fast. everyone is really nice but…. i don’t want to get too close. the damage is done. i am waiting.