I can't believe that it's been almost three years since graduating college. It feels as though time is passing even faster now that I've been out of school and having to take on the world for what it is.
It feels like all of my close friends, even the friends that I'm not as close to, share a similar story. "What are we doing? We're out here giving it our all. We hate our jobs, we hate our hours, and at the end of the month we've made enough to afford a handful of good times on top of the bills and rent that are tying us down to this never ending cycle. Where is this
breakthrough moment that we've been promised? Why are we still doing this?"
After working in the Service Industry for almost 5 years now, it's a story that's been engrained in most all of us that have been in this line of work for a couple of years. We would talk about it as if it where some kind of sick joke. But sure enough week after week, month after month, we would be there doing the same routine, just pondering what the next move could be while not having enough time to really go out there to pursue it. As we all know "There is always something else that needs to be done in the restaurant."
After being behind the bar 5 or 6 nights out of the week for over half a year. Something inside me just gave in. I couldn't do it anymore. I was tired both physically and mentally. I would get irritated very easily. There's only so many times one can hear the same jokes that everyone has a heard a million times over, night after night, and still be be expected to give the guest a somewhat genuine response to make them feel at home in a place that is far from it. There's only so many times that you can somewhat enjoy being swamped, slinging drinks non stop on service bar while also running around to greet new arrivals and maintain this illusion that makes them feel like they're the only ones that you're supposed to be catering to. There's only so many times that you genuinely enjoy staying out until 4am getting hammered to forget about what you just went through and to not even think about what it's going to be like tomorrow. I wasn't eating right, I wasn't happy, and I was definitely drinking too much.
So I quit.
I put in my two weeks and I went to the drawing board hoping that it would be enough time to figure out what to do. I knew that over the years I've tried my hand at plenty of things. I really enjoy Screen Printing and that it's something I've always wanted to do more of. I've always had a Love for music, its been my main squeeze for longer than I can remember, and I regret neglecting it for as long as I have. I tried launching a business. It didn't get as far as I would of liked it to, but there's still some pieces of it that are salvageable. I thought about all of these little dreams that I tried to make happen over the years and I figured there's got to be something that'll stick. I mean people make a living doing these kinds of things every day. It was time to put my gold money where my love is, before I let the opportunity slip through my fingers.
It's now been a couple of months since taking the dive. There's been plenty of stressful days, but stress is an aspect of life that's equally as certain as death and taxes. As a whole I can honestly say that I'm happier with the stress that's come with this change. I find it much more productive than the stress I let accumulated by working in the industry for so long. I've been fortunate to have made friends that I wouldn't of had the opportunity to meet had I still been behind the bar most nights of the week. I've found myself surrounded with positivity and constructive criticism as to ways to make this kind of living work and I will forever be thankful for that. It took me a long time to get back on the train, and now that I'm gone it's hard to say that I'll ever go back at all. at least not full time ;)
You can only be jobless for so long before expenses start to creep up on you, Duh. Fortunately I left my employers on good terms, It's very important to be friends with who you work with no matter what you do.
So on top of working a few shifts here and there I've also had opportunities to work odd jobs around the city, which has been a nice change of pace. I've rejoined the printing studio and have spent a lot of time working on sketches and designs for prints. I've also had time to start piecing together my first full length album. There's a lot still that needs to be done, but at this point it feels like I'm playing a big game of catchup in which I actually enjoy trying to get to where I should've been years ago.
I thought it would be a good idea to add this blog to the website to help track my progress as well as to share my story as I'm going through this process. I don't think my future posts will be quite as wordy as this one. But I do look forward to sharing breakthroughs as well as information on upcoming releases and whatever other interesting occurrences that may happen along the way. So please stay tuned, a bunch more is on the horizon.
Until next time.
A big Thank You! to anyone who took the time to read through this.
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