My Name is Irrelevant to You

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(Bonjour! cont.) Ever a good thing, because now I can start the story off with one of it's core elements. One of those vital factors that have so much, to maintain their own structure. Most of what is holding up this vital factor, this strange evolution of human behavior that can only be theorized as to how and why it functions to be left answerless, staring at the only truth of the matter in that this fact of data...exists. That It Does is our belief and willingness, to uphold it. To accept it as truth. My name, is Fern Elliot. I have always been a romantic, and lived most of my life, as I imagine a lot of females (and the occasional male) have done, in a fairytale depiction of reality. In this world every dream is a gateway, every song from the angels, magic is the very air we breathe and words we speak, and when you find love, you know...with every cell in your body, that This. Is. IT. For a girl who found love more often in these very fairytales, than in the bleak-by-comparison human counterparts, it didn't take long to settle for the inverse... The simmering hatred of manipulative, well-meaning pretty words, designed to train a woman how to behave. The crazy part of me, likes to think of these periods as a kind of "simulation training". The sane part of me reminds me that loss of touch in reality, is a side effect of stress trauma, possibly prefrontal and primal specifically. Actually, I might even argue that when my prefrontal incorporated the damage, the primal took over and overlayed new rational to my active memories. I still remember things, I just...don't feel them in the way that I used to. And the things that I remember... Have you ever looked at someone, maybe as they walk into a place they love, or smell a food they like, and then they take in a loud, slow breathe as if for just a moment, they could have contained every iota of that moment within the very air they now exhaled? Some people..well, most people, aren't aware of what they choose to record, only that they held onto it for the years ahead of them. At some point during my fleeting bouts of study, it had become glaringly obvious to me that not only do we choose to see the world through particular filters, we, at some level, also choose how to remember it. Once that little creature had snared its way into my nuero-structure, there was no ignoring critical turn points in my life. Just the same, there was no end to the hypersonic carousel of potential perspectives, intentions, and variables of data, to account for a turn point. And time wasn't going to wait for me in these moments. So, I've justified about eighty percent of my impulsive decisions already. When I was seventeen and I had finally grown tired of the backwoods drama surrounding my town, I moved to the second largest city in our state, and graduated online. No word to the landlords, no word to my mother, who I had been living without for nearly a year at this point, no word to the school. I had tried before to go online, but it wasnt until I left that one of the teachers, Mr. Vaught, had been kind enough to push me through anyway, allowing me to finish highschool formally. Seventeen, to be eighteen in almost four months, I found myself serving at the modest North East branch of the Hilton Garden Inn. The place did wonders for my ego. When I went in to work at 5, almost 6 in the morning, my family couldn't come close to the immediate needs, and observational offering of experience, that international hotel guests can provide. When I mixed the waffle batter, sliced the fruit (although I wasnt supposed to help in the kitchen), set up and topped off each of the tables in my section, set up the ice boxes, juices, and assorted quick mixed breakfasts...I didnt care that my mother would find me. The door would stay locked and nothing would be done. By the time I got home she'd have left again. When I posted at the hostess podium, wrote out the special of the day, and considered what language I might greet the guest with today, (though I knew few words in any language, a handful of diverse greetings did wonders to shift the experience ), I wasnt concerned with the lack of study or job searching on my fiancé's part. I could make enough to help us get by until something popped up. When I made a connection with any of the many guests, a middle aged celtic woman who still remembered a fair amount of gaelic; or the niece of a japanese born citizen, he in his near sixties, she in her early thirties; or a nerdy Harry Potter fan like me, the moments mattered. There was a pure kind of happiness in sharing those moments with such complete strangers. Despite the occasional round of drama, and too frequent frustration at my childishness, I had friends there. I worked with my brother off and on, as he set up and served most of the banquets. The executive chef was a kind, honerable man. The kind of man who, the moment you shake their hand, you know they would, and almost did, take a bullet to protect the ones they loved. The sous chef was alright, a bit judgemental and somewhat slathered in a carmalized gossip that was unbecoming of a man, but he had a well off sense of humor, and productive outlook on society. Then there was Gretta. Started off as a house maid and stuck her nose in the kitchen so much that when they saw what she was doing, they gave her a place there instead. Loud and obnoxiously ghetto, I loved this woman as I have loved Lucille Ball before her. If a guest were to make the mistake of complaining, they would find themselves chuckling in confusion as she convinced them, hilariously blunt, that they were wrong for their approach, which most of the time they were. In the rare case that Gretta agreed with their complaints, (when she had failed to present the order as requested, or dropped the plate, making it take that much longer for them to eat), she would just as loudly apologize, as heartfelt and genuine as always. Gin was the other woman who served with me. With my experience now, I will say that it's not often that I find myself entirely comfortable with another server near my floor. But Gin was the kind of person that, even when she wandered into my section, I could trust that she would only be refilling their drinks, or something just as sensible. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the service industry, I'll say there are one of two extremes for a staff's enviornment in a restaurant: Either everyone's family, and everything runs smoothly; or everyones a cutthroat and the competition turns them against one another. Luckily, for the most part, Hilton f&b was a family. A really odd family.