I Got Fired.

"Ashton, come have a seat," my manager gestured to me the second I walked in the front door of City Fire Grill my last Friday night. He sat, I sat, the other manager joined us. He also sat.

***Solemn stares.***

Flashback to a night 2 years ago when my boyfriend took my hands in his hands, looked me in the eyes, and told me it "just wasn't right".

I knew what was coming.

".....We've decided to terminate this with you."

"Right now?"

"Yes."

I smiled.

"Well that made this a whole lot easier. I was dreading giving you 2 weeks notice."

The upside is I didn't have to quit, but it seriously wounded my pride.

I graduated with a Bachelor degree from Auburn University, I speak a second language, and I got fired from a waitressing job.

But now that I'm working my new "big girl" job in my own cubicle fully equipped with 2 monitors and a swivel chair, I noticed what I've been learning the past 3 months since moving to Nashville:

How to build a life.

I learned it takes more than the steps I take to be a "real" grown up...house, job, bills, etc.

Lesson #1: How to Be a Friend

Moving to a new city means I miss the luxury of calling up my best friend to come over and stare at the walls with me (disclaimer: I have a really cool roommate for that, and sometimes we do more than stare at the walls).

You have to BE a friend to have a friend.

Welcome back to Kindergarten.

Some people are just jerks, and this doesn't always work, but it feels nice to be nice to people anyway.

Lesson #2: Say YES.

Unless it's something you should obviously say "No." to. I have 2 choices:

1. Stay in my comfort zone with my dog and enter a Netflix-induced coma or

2. Say yes and go out to a new place with new people and let life happen.

Lesson #3 "Going" to church isn't the point.

This realization hit me the hardest: finding a church and attending regularly doesn't make me a faithful Christian. Living it does. It means I find friends and a family that want to walk with me with Jesus...through the double doors and back out again into the real world....

...Into the life that I'm building from the ground up. The friends, habits, and happenings I start now are the ones that carry me into my future.

So yeah, I got fired. But I'm still building my life.