Another potential last night at the Tavern

It's just after 10:30 and I'm slowly closing up the tavern. The sign on the door says we're open until 11:00 so I'm waiting a couple more minutes until I lock the door. We're close to the point where we close the place on Saturdays in the summer and once I close us up, that's it for this era of me working here. 

Sometimes when I think a second about this space I can imagine me here for the first few shifts I worked here as a server, making $2.13 an hour at lunch. This was in August of 2004. I'd left the full-time job I had in Charlottesville and I'd been sitting in my house doing nothing for two months. When the bottom fell out, this is where I landed. And I began to rebuild my life again.

And now I'm in a life that is full and filled with lots of activity, even though I'm not always certain that I'm in the right place. I believe there is something, or many somethings, that is not quite right at the moment. 

It's 11:02 and everything is done and I'm sitting at the bar having a shift beer and I think about all the times I am this spot as a customer and then I think about how special it is to be sitting here right now on another potential last night here. I don't know when I'll be here on a Saturday again. 

The next time I will work here will be for a private party. And then that makes my mind wander and wonder if this could be a post-wedding destination in the future. That's happened here before and if I think for a second, I can see all of the people I've made happy here in the past in this spot. This spot I love and care for and want to see shine in the future. 

Tonight I cooked 12 dinners and made a decent amount of money for a six hour shift. I'd rather be doing this work than catering because here I can try to build a clientele whereas catering is about becoming an ant and working with a crew to accomplish a series of tasks. 

I'd rather be here figuring out how to make pink lemonade, which I did tonight.

The first set of customers was a family of five from Alexandria who were visiting and somehow stopped in here. Two adults and three little kids, and I got their food prepared quickly and they had a good time, I think. It filled me with joy to see a family come in here, and I loved that they played with the games I've brought in over the years and that they actually played with the Lego!

I like to make people happy and content. There's maybe a conflict between this job and my day job.

So who knows what will happen next? The world can be strange and there definitely seem to be more changes than usual about the world around us. I just know that for tonight I had another great time working at the tavern and I hope for many more.