Feb 12, 2026
Exactly one month ago I was fired. Even though I could feel something was wrong in my gut, it still came as a shock to me. A meeting that I had thought would bring some kind of resolution and a plan for the future ended up with, “ We don’t see a way forward”
I’ll spare you the details, for now, but as I left and the shock wore off, I made my usual call to my best friend to fill her in and then, I felt this instant surge of relief wash over me.
After almost 17 years I was finally done with hospitality. This was it. I’d been blessed to travel around the country working in this industry and made some life-long connections but as I went home to sit with it and over the coming weeks it became ever so clear to me. That chapter of my life was closed.
It wasn’t perfect timing but these things seldom are, my partner and I had recently become apartment owners and he was in Brazil at the time visiting his family but when you look at these things from the outside all I could see is how lucky I was to have these things both the material and the immaterial.
The months leading up to this had been intense. My now-ex business partners and I had been renovating and rebranding the restaurant, ready to re-open, when my grandfather passed away after over a year of being in and out of hospital. A few weeks later, we moved into our new place. I sat in that apartment wondering what to do next.
The following day I went to the beach. By that afternoon I had secured a casual job helping a friend’s brother out delivering produce to restaurants during the Australian Open. Three days later I’d completed my white card training, a safety card which is needed for any construction or work site. Anybody who has met me would be gagged at the thought of me in hi-vis but fuck it, its time for something new.
I started working on my novel again. I went to gigs every weekend, keeping a new years resolution I had made for myself. I caught up with friends and family. I started looking for what was to come next with curiosity not despair.
I had planned to keep this from my partner as I didn’t want him to be stressed out on his holiday and wanted to tell him in person, but one day it just came up and I told him. I fell even more in love with him that day, I felt so supported and understood. He knew I wasn’t happy where I was and he said he wanted me to be happy.
Here goes…something!
P.S – I’m yet to grace a worksite with my presence as I’ve been busy chasing other dreams, but at least I now know how to put on a hardhat.
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