Well, I didn’t think this would happen so quickly. But here we are. Time to go back and talk about the big incident that got me and my partner fired last October. Reason being, during my quiet time and Tarot reading this morning, a bolt of lightning hit my brain. I have my perspective shifted where the bar owner is concerned. And I have forgiven Joe entirely for the shenanigans that preceded the shit-canning. What I hadn’t accounted for yet, was that I needed to ask for forgiveness myself.
Now, to be fair, I had to be at this stage of spiritual growth for me to even see it. But now that I am here, it was kind of an exciting phone call to make.
So the story goes something like this…. The bar opened under new ownership at the end of May, 2024. I was hired on weeks before and got to be part of the cleaning and set up. Everything was running smoothly (ish… again, I will acknowledge that I was deliberately ignoring some red flaggy kind of things, as per usual) We got through the summer and as a token of his appreciation to his staff, the owner shut down the bar on a Sunday and had a party bus take us all out to his private lake -meaning he pays a huge sum of money for a “membership”. Pretty cool thing for him to do, for sure! Every one of us was really excited.
I worked Saturday nights. Business was pretty slow for the first part of the evening, so I cut the other bartender pretty early. I NEVER mind working my ass off and working up a sweat. I was not disappointed at all when close to 11pm it really picked up and I got my ass handed to me! Bar closes at 2am. Joe is there barbacking for me. I bet you it was close to 4am when we finally left the bar and went home. I should add, we had decided to do “sober September”, so we didn’t have a shifter. Went straight home and did the best we could going right to bed. The party bus was scheduled to leave at 8:30 that Sunday morning. You keeping up with the math here?
A few hours into the craziness of Saturday night, I began to realize we were not going to be sleeping too much and tomorrow was going to be tough (that’s my way of saying I was worried) We had decided we wouldn’t beat ourselves up if we took the day off from our dry month, as long as we took it easy. (And that is my way of saying, I lie to myself pretty easily) The argument inside my mind and body was ongoing throughout the night…. Really started to question if this was a good idea for us. Neither of us has a real functional off switch when it comes to alcohol. And now we are adding three weeks sobriety and sleep deprivation into the mix.
I’m not sure if I have mentioned this before but one of the reasons Joe and I are better off without alcohol is, no matter how good of a time we have on any given day, inevitably we end up fighting at the end of the night. My gut was SCREAMING at me that I needed to reconsider. (more spiritual understanding, I am aware that my energy was more of a catalyst than I understood at that time)
I felt obligated. I felt, with the bar and our team being so new, it would be a bad look for us not to go. I felt it was important to return the appreciation and be a part of it. Not to mention all of the things I made up about how everyone would feel if we bowed out. No one would understand why we were being asocial and pulling away from the “team”. Basically, we just needed to be there. Right? It will all be fine. We will take our N/As and not start drinking ’til later. Everything is going to be fine. We will be fine. It will all be fine.
Exhausted, we pile on to the bus. Have some laughs. Listen to some music. Take some pictures. And about 9:30am, without making eye contact with me or involving me in the decision-making process, my beloved reaches out his hand, takes a gummy (strong one) out of the hand of another co-worker, and pops it whole right in his mouth. Well, fuck it. Let’s start drinking. The timeline gets a little fuzzy, but late afternoon he wonders away from the boat, the campsite, and the group entirely. No trace of him. It won’t be until after the cops show up that I find out, one of the other folks on the grounds found him wondering barefoot through cactus laden fields, lost and incoherent. He couldn’t remember anyone’s names or where we were. Because it was very private property, the police were now involved.
We spent the next several days apologizing. Joe went to each person and very humbly, and at times tearfully, and apologized. It was a tough time. But, much love across the board. Even with the owner. They hugged it out. Jello shots in the cooler. The words were, “You are a part of the _______ family. Shit happens. We’ve all done stupid shit. It will take a lot more than that to make us not love you.” I’m embarrassed. But, we go back to normal life. Three weeks later we would find out that the boss’s membership at this lake was brought into question because of the incident (He’s fine. It wasn’t revoked)… So, I trained my replacement. Joe covered while they went hunting. And they were done with us when they got back. We had no idea it was coming!!
Here was my message this morning: I have grown exponentially since that time. And I owe so so very much to the man who ejected us from his world, for unconsciously aiding the Universe in pushing me out of such a toxic and stunting vocation and world! I like to call him a tool. Because 1, it’s funny. And 2, I mean it. He was a tool used by the Universe to push me in a direction I wouldn’t have gone on my own. I realized this morning that I needed to ask Joe for forgiveness. I didn’t have anything to do with the debacle of that day, particularly. But I have indeed spent too much of my life ignoring my intuition for the sake of appearances or others’ feelings or perceptions or fucking whatever! A million different reasons I ignore that voice. And that day turned out not too differently than I intuited that it would. I knew staying home was the right choice, no matter how we would be perceived. I KNEW it!! And I put Joe in a terrible position for not listening. A humiliating position! To be clear, not in a controlling way at all… I don’t even wear pants!… he would have happily stayed home and slept in with me, had I spoken up.
Forgiving Joe was important. And I am thankful for where we are right now because of how it played out. Shifting my perspective about the other individual involved was important, too. I needed to see the Universe working for my higher good. But asking my love for forgiveness, hadn’t occurred to me until nine months later. Humility doesn’t come easily to me. But when it does, it’s awfully beautiful and complete. And miraculously it keeps getting easier.
And the journey continues. As any good Whovian worth their salt will tell you, it’s not linear “it’s a big ball of wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey stuff” (S3 E10) What an adventure this life is! Here’s to more growth and being kicked upside the head with accountability and self-awareness!
The Hermit's Lamp 