DEVIATING FROM THE PLAN JUST TO COME BACK TO IT BETTER.
Can we all just be honest and say that burn out can manifest itself in a multitude of ways. And sometimes you need to take a fucking break.
For me that break was a 6 month stint as a bartender. I know it sounds counter intuitive to take a ‘break’ in one of the more physically demanding industries, but it provided the mental space my burned out brain desperately needed. To be able to leave work at work, to have constant and reliable structure, to not have my identity attached to my income.
I haven’t really spoken about or publicised it, only my close friends have known the ups and downs I’ve navigated during my hospitality era. I guess because it felt like a time in my life I needed to be more insular. As grateful as I was for the privilege of moving back in with my parents, I had stepped away from 3 years of creative freelancing, and was piecing myself back together after what (at the time) I considered to be a fall from grace. I felt embarrassed. That I wasn’t doing something cool or interesting or chic or any of those superfluous things you’re supposed to be online. I wasn’t living up to the expectation I’d set myself to present to others. And isn’t that just a little sad?
I don’t feel like that anymore. I originally wrote this piece in my notes app whilst on the tube in to my last shift as a bartender, as I had the realisation that it was exactly what I needed to do. I feel proud that I managed to hold my own in an ALL MALE bar, could clock in 45 hours in 4 days, operate under high pressure for 12 hours at a time, go from literally 0 bar skills to 100, and discover a secret wealth of physical and mental strength only revealed just as I was about to sack it all off. I found a whole new community among the people I saw more than my own friends and family - as anyone who’s ever worked in hospitality will understand, nothing will bond you like a shared adversary. You think table 31 are assholes? Great, so do I. It’s truly one of those industries where you meet people you’d otherwise never encounter, and within a few weeks of shared shifts, they’ve become some of your best friends. I feel lucky to have been welcomed in by these people who had no idea (and frankly didn’t care) who I was outside of work. Shared tears in the staff stairwell, handfuls of stolen fries from the kitchen, countless hungover lucozades on the way into shift, ‘accidentally overpouring’ espresso martinis , pockets full of half eaten packets of scampi and bacon fries to finish on the night bus home. Finding myself here in a stage in my life where I didn’t know what I was doing or who I was, this job was a life raft.
When I was in my early twenties I moved to Paris for ‘6 months’. Being presented with an opportunity to stay longer, I remember asking my dad if it was the right decision. All my friends back home were getting on their career ladders, taking leaps and bounds in their adult life. I was worried I was going to get left behind. He told me that I would never get to my older age and think ‘Wow, I really regretted that extra year I spent in Paris’. And it’s probably the best advice he’s ever given to me. Like my favourite chaotic protagonist Jessa said in HBO’s Girls; "I'm going to look fifty when I'm thirty. I'm going to be so f**king fat like Nico. You know why? Because I'm going to be full of f**king experiences.”.
Being a bartender for 6 months will just be another thing that I did, figured out, and moved on from. This detour from ‘the plan’ gave me the space to re-figure things, and myself out, so that I can say I’m now ready to come back to my plan, just as a better, more insightful (and humbled) version. One era seamlessly leading into the next - being only one week from starting an exciting new professional job. The concept that you, as a creative, should do one thing and constantly succeed yourself in that thing, isn’t realistic. I’m an advocate for doing as many random things as you can, because what else if just for the plot?
