Its done, and over with! I’ve washed my hands of the burden and lightened a load off my back. I’ve fought my irrational fears and overcame an obsticle. Yes, on Thursday I told Adrian that I was going back to school. He had asked, “Is there anything else we need to talk about?”

So, as we sat in his tiny shared office in the middle of the busy restaurant kitchen, I spewed off to him everything I was feeling. I started with the “I had a dream” speech in which I told him the passion I’ve had all these years to go into nursing and that I’ve finaly decided to go forth. I quickly moved onto the “It will be good for us” speach in which I explained that I’ve lost my passion for this job and that its time to relenquish to someone else.

He didn’t hesitate at all, he just said how proud he was for me and that he thinks I’m making the right choice. We talked for about an hour about the future of Starbucks, and who should take over for me. We reached several decisions. Then he proceeded to erase all the work we’d done that night, so I had to stay another hour do redo all our data entry.

As I walked out of the hotel door I felt free, as though the burden of this job was being lifted. Two years of sinking in water over my head and choking on more than I could chew. The flying feeling of finaly swimming to the surface and learning to swim. I’ve done everything I could do there as manager and its time for me to give someone else the reigns.

And then the humidity and heat him me like a brick wall from the front, and a load of bricks hit me from above. I can’t turn back! I have to do this, I need to do this, I can’t fail. And then panick. Heavy breathing and fear. I’ve chosen a new path, and I fear getting lost.

That didn’t last long though. A month or so ago, I turned a key in my life and heard a giant “click” as everything seemed to fall into place. The feeling that I was finally on the right track and everything would be all right. Thursday as I was walking home, I felt that same “click” and the load of bricks fell of my back, and everything seemed back on the right track.

Friday, Ross was an asshole again. He was incredibly rude to a customer and half way through saying “I know you’re frustrated, but you can’t allow it to show like you just did”, he blew up saying that I was basically lying and that I didn’t know what I was doing and that he was definately putting in his notice today. So, instead of writing him up, which I’d be happy to do, I just hoped that he was serious this time. I told him “You need to quit Ross, we know you hate your job”, he denied this immediately, so I restated “Well, you hate everyone you work with, thats the same thing”. He just stayed silent. If he doesn’t quit, he’ll have hell to pay next time he treats me like shit again. I’m his boss, and I’ve given him more room than any boss on the planet would allow…so…game on!

Thursday was strange. Minutes away from being done my shift, while I mentally prepared to walk in the 35C heat, Glenn, whom I haven’t seen in a couple months walked back into my life. He has a boyfriend now and doesn’t seem interested in hanging around me. I was so happy to see him though. After all, he really did become a big brother to me. I crave his company now in a completely platonic way. I want to make him proud of me, to make him love me in a brotherly as I love him.

I’ve never shaken the feeling that I’m supposed to have a big brother. A real, biological one. I’ve written about him before. He’s my double, the man that was supposed to be me. I see him as the perfect man that any parent dreams of. Tall, muscular, straight, beautiful, smart, professional, a man’s man. Married by now, with children. He’s perfect. He’s the real second child, born a couple years before me, then my father was snipped to prevent more children. But, my mother decided to carry a box of tiles up the stairs, and had a miscarriage. I was born instead a year or so later. I feel my brother around me sometimes, perhaps only in imagination, and I feel my jealous hatred for his perfection. I know, it seems strange, but its true, he’s swirling around my universe.

Glenn has this same energy about him. Similar in no way except that he feels like an older brother swirling around my head. Yes, he’s the smart one, the good looking one, the popular one, the perfect one. I crave the opportunity to prove myself to him. This is getting pretty deep inside my mind, so forgive me if it sounds nonsensical and irrational. Its like a dream where my ghost brother transforms into Glenn half way through a conversation.

Lord God if I didn’t get an erecition though. I can’t help it. His beautiful eyes and the smile that sucks you in and makes you believe he cares. His voice when he says “would you like to talk awhile”. They way I forgot all my feeling for him and then had them smack me in the forhead like an elastic band. Its it strange to be attracted to your big brother? Or am I attracted to him, because he has a big brother relationship to me?

He walked with me to my car and then I drove him to Safeway. I get so immersed in our conversations that sometimes feel more like a chess game then friendly gab. The world around us speeds by as though we were the focus of a cartoon while the same background scrolls by on repeat. Miles seem like inches.

He said he’d call and we’d go to a BBQ tomorrow. No, its not a date, but I was looking forward to getting back in touch with Glenn, and even seeing Erick before he goes to Australia. I waited, not breathlessly, but I waited for his phone call. It never arrived today.

So, as quickly as Glenn walked back into my life, he was gone.