I opened Co–Star when I woke up today.
I haven’t been checking it consistently, but I think I want to start.
Not because I believe astrology should dictate my life.
It shouldn’t.
But I like the idea of letting it give me a thought to carry through the day.
Today’s message was:
Let it be messy.
And underneath that:
Stop trying to solve your emotions. They’re signals, not problems.
That felt relevant.
Because lately, I’ve spent so much time trying to understand everything.
Why I feel something.
Why someone else feels something.
What caused a problem.
Who is right.
Who is wrong.
What needs to be fixed.
What I should do next.
Maybe sometimes I don’t need an answer immediately.
Maybe sometimes I can just feel something and let it exist.
So I decided that starting today, maybe these entries can revolve around whatever Co–Star gives me in the morning.
Not as a prediction.
More like a question.
Co–Star gives me the sentence.
My actual life gets to decide what it means.
And weirdly enough, today started making sense before it had even properly begun.
Because last night, after everything that had been happening, I made a decision:
We weren’t going drinking.
We weren’t going somewhere loud.
We weren’t going to keep chasing the night.
We went home.
I invited friends over.
Ordered almost $100 worth of food.
Rented Kung Fu Panda.
And watched a movie.
That’s it.
It sounds incredibly boring.
And it was.
In the best possible way.
I realised that I had seen so many clips from Kung Fu Panda on Instagram Reels and TikTok that I almost felt like I had watched the movie already.
Funny scenes.
Memes.
Quotes.
Little moments cut out of context.
But watching the whole thing was completely different.
The jokes were funnier because I understood what led to them.
The characters made more sense.
The emotional parts actually landed.
And yes, some parts were boring.
But I think that made the movie better too.
Because if you want to understand a whole story, you have to sit through the parts that aren’t exciting.
The boring parts.
The awkward parts.
The painful parts.
You can’t skip all of them and still pretend you understand the whole thing.
And then I realised how ironic that thought was.
Because I’ve been doing exactly that with people.
Watching fragments.
Seeing one part of a situation.
Filling in everything that came before and after.
Convincing myself I understood the whole story.
That is partly how I ended up tangled in all of this mess in the first place.
Maybe I’ve been consuming people the same way I’ve been consuming movies.
Highlights.
Clips.
Fragments.
Enough to make me feel informed.
Not enough to actually understand.
So I made myself a little promise.
I want to learn how to enjoy whole things again.
Whole movies.
Whole conversations.
Whole people.
Even the boring parts.
Especially the difficult ones.
Because those are still part of the story.
Last night itself was one of those boring parts.
Pizza.
Movie.
Friends.
Sleep.
Nothing dramatic.
And today I woke up feeling different.
Refreshed.
There’s still something happening in my mind.
I can feel it.
But for some reason it doesn’t feel heavy.
I feel more alert.
Things seem clearer.
I don’t really know how to describe the sensation yet.
It feels new.
And maybe that’s the funny thing.
I spent weeks chasing stimulation because I thought that was how I escaped everything.
Drinks.
Going out.
Noise.
Social media.
People.
Something happening all the time.
Then one night I did almost nothing.
And woke up feeling better than I had in ages.
Maybe boring isn’t empty.
Maybe boring gives everything else somewhere to settle.
Before work, I finally bought something I had been putting off for ages.
A 2TB external drive.
I know.
But genuinely, it was overdue.
I’ve been recording my DJ sessions with my action camera and my laptop storage is basically begging me to stop.
So I guess I already know what I’m doing on my next day off:
sorting through videos.
Organising footage.
Going through all these moments I’ve recorded without ever properly arranging.
And honestly?
That sounds kind of nice.
Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about keeping things.
Photos.
Videos.
DJ sets.
Thoughts.
Memories.
Not because I need to post all of them.
Just because I want to know they’re somewhere.
Maybe that’s what this blog has become too.
A place where I can put things down without losing them.
Then I got to work.
And almost immediately, I was reminded why I love hospitality.
Two tables were regulars.
They were happy to see me.
They told me they had been looking for me.
Then another couple who regularly comes in walked through the front door just to say hi and ask what time I was finishing.
Then there was another group.
A girl with her mum and, I’m guessing, her partner.
She told me she remembered me from the last time she came in because I had served her.
And she said I was amazing.
Small words.
Tiny moments.
Probably things they will forget saying.
But I wish they understood what those words mean to me.
I really do.
Hospitality is weird.
You meet hundreds of people.
Most of them disappear from your life ten minutes later.
So when someone comes back and remembers you?
That means something.
Not the venue.
Not the menu.
Not the drink.
You.
They remembered you.
And lately, when I’ve been questioning so many things about myself, those little moments feel incredibly precious.
I wish I could bottle all of them.
Keep them somewhere.
Open them whenever I start doubting myself again.
Maybe this entry will have to do.
There was another moment at work that made me proud too.
Mariele.
Her favourite phrase lately seems to be:
“Everything fine.”
And somehow, I actually believe her.
I’ve been watching her move around the restaurant smiling genuinely.
Serving people.
Carrying herself differently.
More calmly.
More confidently.
And tonight, someone pushed her past her limit.
The situation became too much for her.
Normally, that kind of pressure might have ended with her lashing out at me.
Instead, she came to me calmly.
Explained how she was feeling.
And asked whether she could leave the situation.
That hit me harder than I expected.
Because I think, in that moment, I finally understood what being a manager means to me.
It’s not just running a floor.
Doing rosters.
Fixing complaints.
Watching service.
Closing tills.
It’s also learning how to regulate myself well enough that I can help somebody else learn how to regulate themselves too.
And seeing that happen in front of me?
That made me feel like maybe I’ve actually done something right.
Maybe I can say I’ve successfully become a manager.
Not because everything around me runs perfectly.
But because someone I care about is handling difficult situations differently now.
And maybe some of what I’ve learned has helped her get there.
Later, James asked me to go over to Lula’s and get some video because they had a well-known live band playing.
The problem was…
the vibe just wasn’t there.
It wasn’t busy enough.
Nothing looked particularly exciting.
And my job was basically to make it look exciting anyway.
So I did what I could.
Found angles where the room looked fuller.
Focused on the band.
Moved the camera.
Tried to capture whatever energy I could find.
And then I realised how incredibly ironic that was.
I was literally choosing the fragment.
I knew what the whole room looked like.
Quiet.
Not much happening.
But someone watching that video later won’t know that.
They’ll see whatever I choose to put inside the frame.
And they’ll decide whether the night looked exciting based on that.
It brought me straight back to everything I’ve been thinking about lately.
Fragments aren’t necessarily lies.
But they are never the whole truth either.
Sometimes the person posting them knows that.
Sometimes the person watching them forgets.
I was supposed to clock out at midnight.
My friend was already there waiting for me because we were going to hang out afterwards.
But I decided to stay another half an hour.
Just in case Lula’s suddenly picked up.
Maybe the atmosphere would change.
Maybe I could finally get something worth using.
It didn’t.
So eventually I accepted defeat.
Sorry, James.
I tried.
But there’s no point paying me for another hour just so I can produce footage that still looks shit.
Sometimes trying harder doesn’t make something better.
Sometimes it’s just not happening tonight.
And that’s okay.
Around that time, Emily gave me something.
A letter.
And some chocolate.
And face mask.
She had been reading what I’ve been writing here.
She knows some of what I’ve been going through.
Emily is one of the people I love enough to let see this side of me.
Because she has always been real with me.
She has always been true to me.
And because of that, I trust her deeply.
I’m not going to write what the letter said.
That part is mine.
I’ll keep it.
I’ll treasure it.
Not everything needs to become part of the archive.
Some things deserve to exist somewhere other than the internet.
That letter can stay between Emily and me.
But apparently the night wasn’t finished with me yet.
After Emily came back from her break, I could immediately tell something was wrong.
At this point, I had already clocked out.
I was done.
My friend was waiting for me.
Technically, whatever happened next wasn’t my responsibility anymore.
But then there’s the manager part of me.
And there’s the friend part of me.
And unfortunately, neither of them seems particularly interested in clocks.
I couldn’t leave someone I care about miserable at work.
So I pulled Emily aside.
Brought her into the office.
And asked what was wrong.
And there it was again.
The same problem.
Circling.
Spreading.
Dragging more people into it.
That was the moment where I realised:
this has to stop.
I’m not saying people aren’t allowed to be human at work.
Of course personal problems follow us through the door sometimes.
We’re not machines.
But once those problems start affecting the workplace itself?
Once they start changing how people work together?
Once everyone is becoming emotionally involved in something that doesn’t actually belong to them?
Then yes.
As a manager, I have to care.
Because eventually it damages the place.
So I made sure Emily was okay.
And then…
Chloe came in.
Coming in hot.
Same problem.
Again.
Apparently she had now been caught up in it too.
At that point, I had absolutely nothing left.
I had already had the conversation with Emily.
I was mentally exhausted.
My friend was still waiting.
I wanted to leave.
I wanted my night.
So I told Chloe the truth.
I had nothing else to say.
I could listen.
But I couldn’t give her another answer.
And I told her something I think I need to remember myself:
be a wall.
Let whatever you hear hit you.
And let it fall.
Don’t carry it.
Don’t pass it on.
Don’t add another interpretation.
If someone asks you about it again, tell them you have nothing to say.
If they want answers, they should speak directly to the people who are actually involved.
Not another friend.
Not another coworker.
Not another person who heard something from someone who heard something from someone else.
Go to the source.
Chloe just needed to let some steam out.
So I let her.
I listened.
That was all I had left to give.
And tonight, weirdly enough, I finally related to Hotel California.
“You can check out any time you like.
But apparently you can never leave.”
I had clocked out.
I was still managing.
I had a friend waiting.
I was still listening.
I had technically finished work.
Work had absolutely not finished with me.
And maybe that is what Co–Star meant this morning.
Let it be messy.
Because today was messy.
Some of it was beautiful.
Some of it was boring.
Some of it made me proud.
Some of it made me tired.
People remembered me.
Someone I’ve been managing showed me how much she has grown.
A friend gave me a letter I’ll probably keep for years.
I filmed something from an angle that made it look better than it really was.
I stayed late for footage that never became worth filming.
I listened to problems I couldn’t solve.
And I learned that sometimes the most useful thing I can tell another person is:
don’t carry this any further.
Let it stop here.
Maybe that applies to me too.
Not every feeling needs solving.
Not every story needs another narrator.
Not every problem needs another person involved.
Not every boring part needs skipping.
Not every beautiful thing needs sharing.
Sometimes the mess can just exist.
And maybe my job isn’t always to clean it up.
Maybe sometimes I just need to experience the whole story.
Even the parts I would normally rather skip.