Goodbye, Zander's

I was in the eighth grade in 2005 when I started working at Zander's Coffeehouse. I can remember my first few days there like it was just a week ago. A 14 year old me walked in, unsure of what it meant to even have a job. I washed dishes on my first night and oddly, I didn't hate it. I had this excitement then that something wonderful was happening and that I should embrace it. At 14 years old, I had no idea what that job would turn into. When I started, minimum wage was $5.15 and for a long time, I didn't make a penny more. I worked just a few hours a week, blowing each paycheck as they came in. I had no concept of saving money or investing. I wish I could say I'd go back and change that, but I wouldn't. I had really cool stuff when I was 14.

When most kids would work odd jobs throughout high school, I never found the right time to leave my own. I stayed loyal to that place for seven years, and it broke my heart on Monday, April 2 2012, to close up one last night. As I swept the floors, tears starting running down my face as I stopped and looked around. The lights were off, the music had stopped and the doors had been locked. I had closed so slowly. It was around 10:00pm, awhile after I should have been on my way home but I couldn't bring myself to let it go. So many memories came flooding in as I realized it was over. My shift had already ended, I was just putting off the inevitable moment of leaving.

The walls were a different color now, the ownership changed and most of the employees different. But oddly, so many things were the same. The smell of the coffee, the tip jar I made when I was in high school, the dip in the uneven floors. 

If the walls of Zander's could talk, they would truly tell the story of my childhood. I went through all of my high school and college career within those walls; they saw my tears, friendships, relationships, meltdowns, triumphs and so much more. I was sitting in the chairs that still remain in the sitting area when I found out I would have a little sister in 2006. I went on my first date with Ethan in 2005, and it started with a cup of coffee before heading over to the State Cinema. In 2007, I had my first dating experience with someone way too old for me, but of course, I met him through Zander's. And I met so, so many people that I grew to care about, even looked forward to seeing.

I learned so much about life in that place, and it broke my heart to leave. But it was so, so overdue. Working somehwere when you're 14 isn't hard, but it's hard for others to see you as anything but that 14 year old, even when  you're almost out of college. It was time for me to leave and I put it off for as long as I possible could. As I turned the key one last time, I locked the door to part of my childhood. It was almost ceremonious. It was a rite of passage that many take years prior to their college days; quitting your first job is like breaking up with your first boyfriend. I guess I'mr really no good at normal. I married my first real boyfriend... I stayed at my first job for seven years.

Goodbye, Zanders. There will be so much of you that I will miss. The customers, the familiarity, the child you watched grow.

Thanks for everything.