four years, seven months, and seven days

Almost four years and eight months ago I started a blog. I started it because I thought I had an interesting life. I started it because I thought that I had something to say. The blog wasn’t great but I was posting, and that sometimes, is the hardest part, sticking to it once you’ve started. When my Dad died I finally got readable content to my blog, but some couldn’t read it without crying. I apologize. Then in an attempt to carry on and live life, I went to culinary school. School was great. It did most of the things I wanted it to. It exposed me to new people, gave me new friends, but most importantly, it gave me something to do. I was so busy with classes and homework I had no time to think about anything else. There is something to be said for turning it all off. It’s easier. It’s easier to turn it all off and not feel.

Three years later, I graduated with a degree in baking and pastry and the thought that the world was mine and I was going to conquer all. Big dreams and big ideas that once I put in a real world kitchen I soon realized wasn't my dream. Culinary school educated me in many ways other than just baking and cooking. It filled my time with classes, homework, projects, and new friends, but it never really filled my heart. I did what I was told and I told myself that I liked it. I told myself that this is what I was supposed to do and now that I was doing it, everything would fall into place and all my dreams and wishes would come true. But that is not how it works.

A year and eight months later I find myself wanting nothing to do with the culinary world and actually more lost than I have ever been. I have no idea what to do with my time, and in the beginning it was nice. After three years of having way too much to do and never having enough time to 100 hour work weeks, the thought of doing nothing was amazing. I finally had time to do all the things I never had time to do. The first few weeks were awesome. But as the weeks turned to months and is now going on years, oh what I wouldn’t do to have a job. To have a reason to get up in the morning. To have a reason to put on pants. To have somewhere to go and something to do. Every day.

Slowly the interviews got fewer and fewer. The call backs stopped happening and now I rarely even get a response. Part of it is my fault because I have no idea what I want to do or what kind of job I want to have. I just know I want a job. Employers don’t like that. But the last year and a half have not been a total and complete loss. I have learned a lot about myself and the things I can do. We no longer need to call someone to do stuff or just go to the store and buy everything, I can do it. It is amazing what I can do with the internet and an afternoon. So for now I am still searching. I am still learning. I am still dreaming. I am still hoping. I am still getting back up.

Love always, K

waking up

I use to be a happy person. I use to smile a lot and be wild and crazy. Fun loving and free. Life happened and stuff just got in the way and I somewhat lost myself. For the past while, I have been in sort of a dark and depressed place. I faked it enough that not too many eyebrows were raised but it was all a mask. I heard when people told me what I was doing wrong, but I never listened. I wasn't ready to. I didn't want to admit to being so wrong for so long. But I don't want to be bitter or angry. I don't want to be lost or lonely. I am an amazing person and the people I allow to be a part of my life are lucky. When I am your friend, there isn't anything I wouldn't do for you. I love my friends and want nothing but the best for them. I like to believe the good in everyone. I want to believe that in general, people aren't bad, just having a bad time... but I know that isn't the case. There are people who just don't care. They take what they can get and are completely fine leaving you with nothing. It is hard to swollow. It is sad. It makes me sad. I am not one of those people. I don't want to be friends with those people. I am going to work hard on making a better me. I am going to work on making better decisions for me. I don't want to be the girl I have been allowing myself to be. The stupid girl. The girl that allowed herself to be a doormat and a backdoor whore. I deserve better. I deserve more. One day I will look back on my life now and laugh at how silly I use to be. One day I will look back and wonder what I was thinking and why I let it go on for so long. It is a long rough road. I will have hard times. I will fall. But as long as I keep getting back up... nothing can stop me.

Change Sucks

It is funny to me the varying degrees of friendship. The things you will let someone get away with. The things that annoy and bother you to your core but you chalk it up to them just being them and you allow yourself to over look it. You convince yourself that the person is worth it. That they mean enough to you and you mean enough to them to overlook the bad and only accept and acknowledge the good. But if you really look deeper, how many other people in your life would you let get away with such actions?
To have someone in your life that you allow to walk all over you is exhausting. To allow them to treat you in a way that you would never talk to someone else for even thinking. To be the doormat. It hurts. Especially when you know better. You hear the logical advice and know the right thing to do... yet you stay. You stay because you are sad. You stay because you are lonely. You tell yourself you are making a difference. You tell yourself you are doing the right thing. You tell yourself a number of lies in order to not thing about it. To not feel the pain. To not have to change. Change sucks.
But what do you do when you no longer have an option? When the situation itself changes and you are forced to either change with it or walk away for good. What do you do when life doesn't let you decide. Do you hold on for dear life hoping this too shall pass or do you let go and see what life has planned?? What do you do??
Love Always, K

... okay ...

I find it funny, not so much haha, but rather hmmm, the crazy things you will let your mind get away with. That keeping busy will help heal old wounds. That if you put all of yourself into something, time will move much to quickly to really be able to stop and think of why you needed the distraction in the first place. A year ago, I was at my lowest point. I didn't know how to face the morning, and I hated the night. I didn't know if anything would ever be okay, and while I still am unsure of how, I know that somehow, someday I will be okay. I will get over the bad and not let it hold me back anymore. That someday I will be able to look back and laugh at how stupidly dramatic I was about the things that don't matter. Molehills aren't mountains, and eventually, we all learn to be normal again. Well, we all find a new normal that works for us and we tell ourselves that we are happy again. That things aren't so bad, and that after all that has happened, we have taken the greater lesson from it all and it has made us a better person.
I also think, we put too much pressure on certain words. My personal favorites are okay and enough. Everything is always whether or not I will be okay, if life will be okay, if my friendships will be okay... what is okay? Shouldn't I want more? Okay seems like it is the bottom of the barrel of good, bordering on bad, waiting for one little thing to go wrong to throw your whole world below the yellow line where nothing will ever be ok. Worse is enough. I always want to be enough. Good enough. Funny enough. There enough. Pretty enough. Enough of a person. Enough of a friend. Yet again, shouldn't I want more?
When you hold all your emotions and feelings in the inside, life seems to be a tightrope act. A careful balance so not to tip the scale and fall. To hold everything in so tight for fear of exposure, you never really stop to see that the only one you are truly scared of is yourself, and what you might become, if you let the freak flag fly and just be you. I hope a high expectation of friends and an even higher on of myself. But, when you hold it all in, the only person to know you failed is yourself. The only one who is really disappointed is you. I guess I just need to get out there more. Put myself out there more. Be me and let the chips fall where they may. I am an amazing person. I am an amazing friend. If someone doesn't appreciate me, it really is their loss. I will be alright. I will move on. I will be okay.
Love Always, K

... yeah, I know.. I suck at this game!

Who knew going back to school was going to take over my life? It is weird for me to think about it and that 10 weeks ago I was trying to decide what I want to be when I grow up! These last nine weeks have been so crazy and full of so much I don't know where to begin or how to start. I feel that I have just been put through a twister and I am left wind blown wondering where the hell the last couple months went. Every week I am learning so much and I don't even realize how much they are packing into my brain. It all seems like second nature that I have known my whole life so why doesn't everybody else know what it means. Why don't you know how to mise en place or fabricate meat? Duh! So simple! Even more crazy is how life seemed to happen when I wasn't even paying attention. You always hear people say that they truly became happy when they stopped trying to be. It is true. It happens. I have been so busy and so stressed out to worry about the stupid things in life and I have no time to care about the petty things. I am truly happy. I love school. Even the days I don't love class, school as a whole is a huge plus. I have some things I don't like and the paperwork can suck my toe but really truly, I don't ever want to do anything else with my life. Of course, I wouldn't be Kayla without some of the little mellow drama but I am trying my hardest to maintain the calm, cool, collected mode and not fall back into my crazy ways. I am growing up.
I miss my friends. I have no time. I don't sleep. I only eat in class. I work too much. I don't have enough money. I don't have enough fun. But I am having the time of my life. Everyday when I drive to school I get excited on what new adventure I am about to embark on.

I miss you all, I love you all, and I am sorry for being a crappy friend right now. Please understand what I am trying to do, and just be happy for me. Thank you!

Love, K

a heart to heart

For a little while now I have been thinking of all the things going through my brain and how much of a happier person I may be if I let it out. So, I feel I should do this now. Sometimes it helps to just say it out loud, and sometimes, even if it isn’t what you want to hear, it helps to have someone respond, even if it is just a simple hug or a shoulder to cry on. So I am going to let it go. Vent. I apologize in advance that this might not all make sense, and I will prolly talk in circles, because I do that. So grab a drink, maybe some popcorn and settle in, this could be a long one.
I do not think highly of myself. I know this. I just find it hard that after twenty four years of never being good enough, I was never perfect enough, that at some point I kind of stopped caring. And now sometime in the last sixteen years, I have become the one you don’t want to turn out like… the bad seed that failed to sprout. No matter what I was suppose to be or who I am not suppose to become, there was never a time when it was okay for me to just be me. Kayla was never really an appropriate option. I have always been not good enough or not worth the effort. Thus it is hard for me to be okay. It was hard for me to come up with reasons why Kiel should have picked me, why I was better than the other girls… It is hard for me to see why I am better without him when he was really the first person to walk in and be okay with just me. I didn’t have to be anything with him. I loved him for that.
Letting go of Kiel was a very hard thing for me to do. The number one reason being, that I am still very much in love of the idea of Kiel. I always knew he never did and never would feel for me the same way I felt for him, but try telling that to the heart of a young girl. It was hard, at the end, to really come to terms with the fact that it was all for nothing. It just seems wrong that we were really good friends who could talk about anything and had some really great times together to have it end the way it did. He wasn’t supposed to end up being the asshole. He should not have dried my tears and reassure me that it will all be okay, when he knew it wouldn’t. He shouldn’t have tried so hard at being that respectful for years of my feelings only to become that guy.
For a long time after, part of me wanted a boyfriend to make Kiel jealous. Part of me wanted a boyfriend to help me get over him. But mostly I think I wanted a boyfriend just to prove that it is possible. Kiel was the only guy to be interested in me, even if it was only for sex. All my other guy friends or potential whatevers would rather just be my friend, nothing more. He was willing to give it a try. Granted I can’t totally blame him cause I am a crazy lady but he knew that going in! We were friends for years. He knew how I felt about him, we talked about it. And when he was drunk and got all flirty and handsy with other girls, he never did it to me. I asked him about it. He said he cared about me too much, as his friend, to give me the wrong impression or hurt me in that way. And that was where I got confused and frustrated and I didn’t get it. That was when we started hanging out more, talking more, really actually being good friends. We had our ups and downs and in the end, it blew up into something nobody wanted to be a part of. Now, please note, I said I am still very much in love with the idea of Kiel. Kiel would have been a really great guy if not for the fact that he was Kiel.
Now, fast forward two years. I am back in the same dame boat. Not with Kiel! No!! That boat is burnt and scattered across the desert, never having any hope of even seeing water again, let alone sailing in it. Now we have a brand new boat who is a lot like the old boat only different. Some differences are good, some are bad. But should I really be back on a boat on the water? Shouldn’t I be on a seadoo or a surfboard maybe? I don’t know what I am doing. I am flying by the seat of my pants and I can’t decide if I am okay with that or not. I do know, as much as I try not to, I really like this guy. The more I hang out with him, the more I am around him the more I like about him and the more I want to be around him. Part of me thinks I need to the hell back on dry land and stay there for a very long time!! But part of me says hey, I am young, why not live a little… I don’t know what I am doing.

The Update

School: Today, after attending class for three weeks, I got officially accepted.... good thing... what a relief!! Last week was soup week, and as you may know, I am not a fan of soup. Just no thanks, I would rather have something else. So, class was interesting for me cause it was sorta like foreign, but I did okay. For my groups' free choice soup we made chicken tortilla and I prolly ate half of it before we served it, then once Chef graded up, I ate most of that bowl too. So good! Thank you Gustavo! This coming week is on Vegetable... oh joy. It shouldn't be too bad... I hope. Ain't going to lie, a little nervous. Then the week after that is the mid-term, super scared about that, but the next week after that is chicken so that should be fun! I am excited for chicken!

Home: Last Saturday was my parent's wedding anniversary. I thought I would be fine, because it was nothing we really celebrated before. Mom and dad would usually exchange cards and Dad would get Mom some flowers and that would be that... no big thing. had class Saturday afternoon and as I drove down, I started sobbing like a baby. Nice. While in class it wasn't so hard to control my emotions because I was busy with a ton of things to do and get done so I didn't really have time to think, but have no fear, once I hit the parking lot after and saw the truck... lost it! Great.

Life: I have always said that I love people. I find them fascinating. I love to watch them because as a whole, people aren't vary smart yet are very entertaining! Recently, I have become aware, yet again, at how amazing people can be. The expectations that just because that is how they feel, that is how you should feel as well. Really? No, thank you, I will hold my own opinion of you. Also, I am amazed at the balls some people have and the things they offer and request. I am growing a lot but there is still a long way for me to go, but I don't think I will ever be as confident as some of my new friends. It is a scary world out there, and it makes me nervous but I am going to try my best to put my head up and be a part of it. I use to think only I could hold me back, and I still think that is true, but in some ways, I am happy to withdraw from certain activities.

That is all I got for this moment... I got a couple stories for you but there is some stuff happening that will add to it so I think I am going to wait and just lay it all out at one time. So keep checking in and I will let you know as soon as I know more!

Love, K