Yesterday I called it quits at the restaurant I worked at part-time for nine months. Since then, I've been feeling a plethora of emotions so I left the house to grab some coffee and pen down my thoughts (instead of enjoying the ongoing Spain and Russia match), before these emotions manifest into unproductive days and sleepless nights.
It seems odd to feel so emotional about something seemingly trivial - after all, it is only a part-time job. But over the course of nine months, my colleagues at Chicken Up have become family I see every Friday and Saturday night. I don't know how I'm going to be spending my first free Friday night in a while, but a part of me anticipate feeling empty (???) knowing I won't be working at that time. The restaurant was surprisingly quiet on my last Saturday night at the restaurant. It's funny how I began to attach meanings to what I was doing on my last night working at Chicken Up. It was the last time I'd be serving this basket of Ganjang Chicken; it was the last time I'd be making this watermelon soju; it was the last time I'd be washing this toilet; it was the last time I'd be sweeping this floor; it was the last time I'd be washing glasses at DTMM. I remember as I was walking from the DTMM bar to Chicken Up, and the lights were turned off, I took one last look at the restaurant and felt an oddly calming sensation come over me. It was almost as though the universe was telling me I'd made a good choice to close this chapter of my life. That it was time to write a new one. It was all very strange. I thought it'd be a harder goodbye. I was wrong.
Until we had to part ways outside the restaurant, that is haha. I'd made myself a promise not to shed a tear while I was saying goodbye (I'm really bad with farewells) 'cause I didn't want to end my time there on a low note. I'm happy I kept that promise and left the place with very fond final memories. Okay, it's starting to sound like I'm leaving forever and I'll never see them again, but that's not the case. It's just gonna be different, you know? Then I got to eat with my favourite people after work and that made me very happy.
I know this was only a temporary farewell because it wasn't going to be the last time I'd be meeting these people I've grown to love. I wanted to commemorate my time at Chicken Up by writing about my last day. I was thinking a lot about how I should title this blog post, then I remembered I'd written one just like that a year and a half ago. This is reminiscent of that post, when I was leaving Singapore for six months for my exchange programme in New York City. This time I'm leaving my part-time job without much of a plan but I'm looking forward to whatever life has in store for me.
With more time on my hands, I've been reading Rolf Dobelli's The Art of Thinking Clearly (I highly recommend this), I've been watching this Korean drama 김비서가 왜 그럴까 and I've been following the World Cup intensely. It's been a long time since I've sat at a coffee shop just to read a book and I've to say it was a very nice time spent. When was the last time you took time off just to do something you loved doing?
xoxo, gweishi.
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