Today is my day off.
And somehow, before I had even properly started the day, I was already thinking about yesterday.
Yesterday felt wrong.
Nothing catastrophic happened.
But everything felt slightly off.
I was tired.
Clumsy.
Dropping things.
Kicking tables.
My energy felt strange.
And even though the shift eventually became easier, I think some part of me carried that weird feeling into today.
Then I opened Co–Star.
The line it gave me was:
Anxiety is a defensive turn of your imagination.
And that felt uncomfortably accurate.
Because sometimes anxiety is not about what is happening.
It’s about what I think might happen.
Rehearsing problems before they exist.
Preparing myself for something I can’t even name.
Waiting for yesterday’s bad feeling to prove itself right.
Maybe that’s why today started with a little tension in me.
But before I get into today, there’s something from yesterday I forgot to write down.
During my break, I went over to Lula’s for one quick drink.
I’ve been trying to spend more time there lately.
Talking to the staff.
Learning the room.
Taking in the environment.
If I’m going to become part of Lula’s family soon, I want them to be familiar with me before I officially become part of the team.
And I want the place to feel familiar to me too.
While I was heading outside for a cigarette, a little boy, maybe eight or ten, was walking in with his mum.
The walkway was narrow, so I stopped to let them pass first.
He was busy talking to her and almost walked straight into me.
Then, a few steps later, he realised what happened.
He stopped.
Turned around.
Looked at me.
And said, in this tiny polite voice:
“I’m sorry.”
I don’t know why, but that genuinely touched me.
After my cigarette, I went back inside looking for him.
I found him sitting with his mum on the seaside deck.
Just the two of them.
Talking.
Smiling.
The manager noticed I was looking around and asked what I was doing, so I told her about the little gentleman outside.
She immediately knew who I meant.
Apparently he had been incredibly polite all night.
And then she told me something that somehow made the whole thing even sweeter:
he was taking his mum out for dinner.
He had been to Lula’s before.
Loved it.
And wanted to bring her back so they could sit by the water together.
Mate.
My heart.
Technically, I don’t even work at Lula’s yet.
So I couldn’t exactly walk over and start comping their food like I would at Rosie’s.
But I knew immediately that these are the kinds of people I would want to keep.
The kind of guests I would want as regulars.
The kind I would remember.
So I told the manager:
whatever dessert that little gentleman orders, put it on a tab.
I’ll pay for it later.
Maybe that says something about me.
I don’t think I know how to stop being hospitable just because I’m technically on a break.
And maybe I don’t want to.
Later today, I was getting ready to go to a leaving gathering at The Zookeeper’s Son.
One of the managers in the company, Lisa, was leaving.
I had never actually worked with her.
That’s what made the invitation feel so meaningful.
She had asked Jules to invite me.
Me.
Not everyone.
Maybe one or two other people too, but still.
I’m not close with Lisa.
We’ve only had a handful of interactions.
And yet she remembered me.
That felt incredible.
Because I don’t treat people differently just because they have a title.
Owner.
CEO.
Manager.
Customer.
I genuinely don’t care.
If anything, I probably care more about the paying customer because they are the reason the venue exists in the first place.
People from the company can come in, eat, drink, use the company card.
Technically they are a liability to the venue.
HAHAHAHA.
But seriously.
I don’t believe in changing how I treat someone depending on how much power they have.
If you walk through my door, I will treat you properly.
That’s it.
So the fact that someone from another venue remembered the way I treated her enough to want me at her leaving gathering?
That meant a lot.
On the way there, I finally got to use the new train line.
I have basically watched this thing being built for the entire time I’ve lived in New Zealand.
When I moved here three years ago, they were already working on it.
Construction everywhere.
Businesses disrupted.
Roads changed.
And now it is finally open.
So obviously I was going to use it immediately.
My nearest station is Maungawhau.
Five minutes from home.
Then straight to Waitematā.
Another five-minute walk to Rosie’s.
I genuinely feel like I just unlocked part of Auckland.
Work.
The city.
Karanga-a-hape.
All suddenly easier to reach.
Was it worth the three-year wait?
Oh yes.
At the gathering, of course I ended up talking to Jules.
Jules is my workplace mum.
She is one of the people I trust most when it comes to anything affecting me mentally at work.
If something happens around Rosie’s, she is usually one of the first people I want to talk to.
I ask for her advice.
I trust her judgement.
I trust that she understands how much the venue means to me.
And part of why I don’t completely panic when things happen at work is because I know I have her in my corner.
I don’t usually bring her the deeply personal parts of my life.
Maybe one day that will change.
For now, this is enough.
While I was talking to her about everything that has been circling around me lately, it suddenly started raining.
I tried to pull her under the roof.
She didn’t move.
She said she liked it.
She said:
“It feels like the world is crying with us.”
And I related to that immediately.
Here we were talking about all this mess.
All this pain.
Everything that had been sitting on my chest.
And suddenly it was raining.
Like the world had decided to join the conversation.
Then later, I saw a rainbow.
And I really wish I had a photo of it.
But I didn’t take one.
I had been trying to stay off my phone.
Trying to be in the moment.
So I just watched it.
And after Jules had told me the rain felt like the world crying with us,
I told her maybe the rainbow meant something too.
Maybe it was the universe telling us that everything would be fine.
Not literally.
I don’t know if the universe sends messages.
But I liked the thought.
Rainbows only come after rain.
There’s something beautiful in that.
Maybe pain and hope are allowed to exist in the same story.
Maybe things don’t have to stop hurting before something beautiful appears beside them.
I missed the photo.
But I kept the memory.
And maybe that is enough.
I left the gathering more emotional than I expected.
I never worked with Lisa.
But I knew how much Jules trusted her.
How much Jules respected her.
How much Jules loved her.
And I tend to love the people that the people I trust love.
Maybe that sounds strange.
But I trust Jules’s judgement.
So while I had the opportunity, I asked Lisa for advice.
I love doing that.
Whenever I meet someone with more experience than me, I want to hear how they see things.
Not because I automatically believe they know everything.
But because every perspective gives me another way to become better.
We talked about the company.
Rosie’s.
Me.
Things happening around the venues.
Some of what she told me can stay with me.
Not everything needs to be written here.
But what mattered was that she cared enough to tell me.
Lisa didn’t have to care about Rosie’s.
It wasn’t her venue.
She was leaving the company.
She could have very easily looked at everything happening and said:
not my problem anymore.
But she didn’t.
The way she spoke made it obvious that she had been watching.
Thinking.
Caring.
She wanted other venues to thrive even when she was walking away.
That told me more about the kind of leader she was than any title ever could.
Lisa.
Former Business Leader of The Zookeeper’s Son.
One of the good ones.
And I think that is partly why I left feeling so emotional.
Maybe I saw something in her that I want to become.
Someone who cares beyond the limits of her own venue.
Her own shift.
Her own position.
Later, I went back to Rosie’s.
Which is funny, because I’ve been telling myself that I should probably spend more time away from work people.
But one day without them was apparently enough.
I love them.
Maybe I don’t need to get away from them.
Maybe I just need to remember that sometimes they are my friends before they are my coworkers.
Tonight, nobody needed fixing.
We drank.
Talked shit.
Laughed.
Had fun.
And I realised I needed that too.
We’ve all been through so much shared chaos together.
Maybe that is part of why we are so close.
Sometimes the whole friendship can be explained with:
you had to be there.
And tonight I related so much to Don’t Rein Me In by Sam Fender and Olivia Dean.
I have spent so much time containing myself.
Manager.
Mediator.
Responsible one.
Tonight I just wanted to exist with my people without feeling responsible for every emotion in the room.
At one point though, something happened that made my brain start running again.
The security guard I like was hanging out with the girl who has become deeply tied to all the mess I’ve been dealing with lately.
The mess that had me hating myself.
Hating my life.
Feeling like shit.
And I didn’t like seeing them together.
I could feel that immediately.
Maybe it was jealousy.
Maybe resentment.
Maybe fear that the same drama would somehow spread again.
She seemed to be talking to him about her ex.
And my first reaction was not generous.
But then I had to remind myself:
I don’t actually know what is happening.
They might just be talking.
He might be listening.
He might like her.
He might not.
It is too early for me to decide what any of it means.
And I’m not going to interfere.
I like him.
A lot.
But apparently he has already told people who know I like him that he doesn’t “swing” this way.
And I have to respect that.
Liking someone doesn’t give me the right to stop them from getting what they want.
If something happens between them, I genuinely hope it goes well.
I just hope I never end up in the position of thinking:
I knew this would happen.
But I’m not going to write the ending before the story has actually happened.
Then, after Rosie’s closed, we all went to AA.
Our favourite place.
And thankfully, the night became stupid again.
At some point I asked Alisha, one of the managers there, whether she knew
“the Asian guy who always hangs around here.”
I told her I thought he was attractive.
I didn’t even realise we were talking about the same person,
but apparently there is a manager at Somm Wine Bar nearby who fits the description.
And some of the Somm staff happened to be hanging around AA.
Alisha did not hesitate.
She went straight to them and asked.
No subtlety.
No shame.
No build-up.
Just straight into investigation mode.
So…
I guess this Thursday I have something else to look forward to besides my DJ set. 😜
And then I stopped writing for a while.
Actually stopped.
Put the phone down.
Sat there.
And that was when I really noticed the DJ.
He was good.
Really good.
Not in the way where every song was some huge banger.
In the way where every song somehow felt like the right one.
When I stopped typing and sat there quietly, something more melancholic came on.
When I started texting my friend and my energy lifted a little, the music did too.
I have no idea whether he was actually reading me specifically.
Probably not.
Maybe I was just attaching meaning to the songs because they matched my mood so perfectly.
But either way, the energy felt right.
And as a DJ myself, I respected that so much.
Because good DJs don’t just play songs.
They make the room feel understood.
And maybe that was exactly what I needed at the end of today.
Not another person asking me what was wrong.
Not another conversation to solve.
Not another explanation.
Just music that somehow knew when to sit with me and when to lift me.
And I think I want to end the entry there.
Because I caught myself looking at my screen again.
Writing.
Documenting.
Trying to capture every little thing before it disappeared.
But there were people around me.
Real people.
Talking.
Laughing.
Living.
And I didn’t want to spend another night physically present while my attention was somewhere else.
Anything else worth remembering can belong to tomorrow.
For now, I’m putting the phone away.
I’m going to listen to the DJ.
I’m going to look at the people around me.
I’m going to let the rest of tonight happen without narrating it.
Maybe anxiety is a defensive turn of the imagination.
Maybe music is what brings me back into the room.