Even though you cannot step in the same river twice, you certainly can have similar, different experiences throughout your lifetime, to evolve, to learn, and to love.
A deep healing, rewiring continues to happen for me. I am currently living a contrast from my past.
The Past
At fourteen years old I worked at a swimming pool snack bar serving customers including children who banged their quarters on the counter while waiting for their turn to buy popcorn, candy, or a slice of once frozen pizza-now hot from cooking in an oven and a soda.
I have vivid memories of that summer at the snack bar. I bicycled to the pool early in the morning to help with swim lessons and then before noon shifted into serving three windows of the pool snack bar. One counter overlooked the inside game room and the other two faced the covered patio area of the pool deck near the baby pool.
I remember many times how my boss and a female lifeguard would walk in and out of the door to the back storage room of the snack bar.
Did they not know I knew what they were doing in there?
I had very few conversations with my boss after he and his brother trained me during my first week in the snack bar.
One awful interaction, however, remains vivid in my memory.
It was a very hot, sunny afternoon. Three long lines of customers showed up in their wet bathing suits at rest period wanting treats from the snack bar.
A lady at the one window where I would go first asked for a slice of pizza. There were no more thawed pizzas. I remembered frozen boxed pizzas got placed in the large floor freezer. Yet I couldn’t get the huge box of pizzas out of that freezer. No matter how many times I attempted to lean way over and grab ahold of the box in the higher than my waist on the floor freezer, I could not lift it up.
I walked to the front office and explained my situation to the woman who made announcements on the PA. She said, “I don’t know where he is, and I can page him for you.” I thought he could help me get that box out of the freezer because he stood 6 feet and had a 6-pack torso with bodybuilder’s arms.
I walked back to the snack bar and told the lady customer that hopefully my boss could help me even though I didn’t know where he was.
The front office woman paged my boss several times. I waited. Customers waited. Then my red-faced boss stormed into the snack. He roared at me, “Don’t You EVER HAVE ME PAGED!!! If you can’t reach the DAMN PIZZAS tell people, there are NO PIZZAS!! WHAT the HELL WERE YOU THINKING!?!?!
He said some other nasty things about me which I will spare you from knowing. I did not get fired. And I didn’t quit, either. I felt too terrified to do that. Quitting did not even occur to me.
Yet now the thought of quietly staring at him and silently walking out of the snack bar with my dignity completely intact becomes a lovely imaginative rewriting of this ugly scene from my life movie.
The customers in line were completely silent and seemed as shocked as I was. And hopefully, they did not feel the simultaneous feelings of fear, shame, anger, indignation, and humiliation that I felt.
I quietly said to the lady, “We have no pizzas. Can I get you something else?” As I recall she was very kind to me. She purchased a bag of already scooped popcorn. I continued to serve the remaining customers one at a time until nobody appeared at any of the windows. The rest period came to an end.
The story I told myself about my boss which I still believe was accurate is that he had been in another building on the pool grounds with a different female lifeguard. Being paged on the public address interrupted their afternoon tryst. Of course, he would be enraged. And I don’t know. Maybe he was in a very important meeting inside that other building.
A couple weeks after that incident “Margaritaville” by Jimmy Buffett blared loudly and regularly, several times through the day most days of the week from the Jukebox in the game room right next to the snack bar and the third open window. One day I witnessed my boss putting his quarters into the Jukebox and walking away. In a few moments, Jimmy Buffet’s distinct voice sang, “…searching for my lost shaker of salt…” followed by the Starlight Vocal Band singing, “Afternoon Delight.”
Current Reality
I’m working at a Fudge Haus with a loving and compassionate boss who laughs a lot and continues to guide me in a very patient way. I learned yesterday to fold the bag of treats for customers neatly at the creases. I had been crumpling the top of the paper bags some of the time. I now know to crease them every single time. My current boss laughed as he told me how his dad would crumple up the top of the bag and toss it at customers which would totally irritate my boss. My boss also let me know that customers watch me bag their chocolates, fudge, and treats. “They are watching you.” I intuitively knew they watched me, yet I hadn’t been paying close attention to how I folded or didn’t fold the top of the bag.
Our interaction took place when customers were not in the store.
Ah, to continue to learn in an atmosphere of kindness, joy, and compassion remains such a gift, a healing, and a huge relief to my fourteen-year-old self.
Context Matters
The other parallel between these two summers is both have taken place in the context of the death of a relationship.
The summer at the snack bar came on the heels of being ghosted by a boy right after we attended the high school prom. We met at rehearsals for “South Pacific.” He played the role of Stewpot. I played a Bali Hai girl in the chorus. We began dating that spring. Our time together ended abruptly. He simply stopped calling. In those days there were no answering machines, voicemails, emails, or texting. Just rotary dial telephones.
One summer day he appeared at the window of the snack bar. My heart raced. Did he say anything? I don’t remember. He handed me the photos of us at the prom. I said, “Thank you.” Then he was gone. I never saw him again.
My current job at the Fudge Haus came on the heels of the death of a relationship. This time I did the leaving and the ghosting. I upended my whole life and returned to central Ohio. I know exactly why the relationship ended. I continue to glean the many lessons even as I miss a place of beauty and restorative, non-urban quiet.
I know my fourteen-year-old self remains part of me and the many experiences she lived that unforgettable summer. She lived through many other you cannot make this stuff up challenges later that summer and autumn. My fourteen-year-old self deserves to know she survived and that I, Laura of Now, love and cherish her incredible courage, strength, grace, and dignity.
Thank goodness, “Margaritaville” does not play on Sonos at the Fudge Haus. I’m grateful to hear many songs at the Fudge Haus from the 60s, 70s, and even Frank Sinatra singing, “…who knows where the road will lead us, only a fool would say, but if you let me love you, it’s for sure I’m gonna love you all the way.”
Fascinating how life experiences can cycle through in similar, different ways as you work to heal and transform your life from the inside to the outside, the outside to the inside, often simultaneously.
The interconnectivity becomes fully revealed like a hologram of an unfolding life. What will happen next, you might wonder? How will life love you all the way with or without your shaker of salt? What kind of human being are you becoming?
