Since I am, at the end of April, going to be no longer employed in the food service industry. Not that the title was entirely accurate in the first place. I don't know, the Chronicles of being a writer and a bouncer and sometimes bar back while also doing IT administration on the side just doesn't really have a ring to it.
So there, I said it. I'm quitting working at the Reef. Not because I hate the job. Albeit, at times the job was stressful, irritating, discouraging, disheartening, and downright gross. I was a spectator of the inevitable nightly de-evolution of working professionals to stumbling, incoherent Neanderthals, reduced to searching for their basic needs; sex to procreate, food to survive, and shelter to sleep. I've cleaned up more bodily fluids than I would like to admit. Night after night, as I watched the twenty and thirty somethings that passed me, I could not shake the unnerving feeling that if the future of this nation lay in the hands of these same people, moving to Canada really did not seem like a bad option.
No really, I didn't hate the job. And in the end, I enjoyed the people I met at the bar. Each was his or her own character in his or her own life drama. Everybody used the word family loosely around the bar and its employees. Although I always felt welcome, I never really felt included. I think some of it might have been my own withdrawal from the situation at whole. I find that I live in my head more and more these days. None the less, I'll miss the friends I did make, and although I don't feel like the end of April will be the last time I see them, I feel as I will see them much less than I did before.
I quit, mostly, because I am tired. I felt like working at two jobs, I was moving at full steam ahead, setting sail with a full mast of wind, but my rudder was stuck. My days felt like an endless repetition of days and nights; where I would wake up every morning and just hope that I could get through the day relatively unscathed. And this isn't what I wanted. I felt like I was running in circles really fast, faster than I had in my entire life, but just around the same track over and over. I need time to get my bearings straight, plot my course to the destination that I want to go. I mean, I know even the most well conceived plans go awry, and even if I get my bearings straight, it doesn't mean I'll get to my destination with any certainty. But it's nice to have a direction. It's nice to have an idea what you are doing.
Wow. This got relatively downtrodden quickly. I guess ultimately, I know that bartending, the "industry", will always be around for me to return to. The Reef will always be a home that I am welcome at. But if I am to succeed in writing, I need to give myself the opportunity to do so now, when I still have a chance, and honestly not that much to lose. So I exit, leaving the door slightly ajar for a potential return. I don't look back because I know it will remain that way.
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