The One-Year Mark

Today really packed a punch. Facing the reality of a year on unemployment, without purpose or use, for someone like me who loves to give and create is, as it turns out, incredibly difficult. I am very sad.

I didn’t have any idea what was about to happen to me on this day last year, and I know saying that sounds naive — of course, no one had any idea what was about to happen. But I mean specifically, I had no idea what was about to happen inside of me.

For over a decade I made dessert for a living. I always said to friends and colleagues that I half expected someone to walk into the kitchen and put an end to my frivolity. Who the hell is lucky enough to make dessert and collect a paycheck for it? The job police were certainly hot on my tail, I knew it. Ultimately, it wasn’t the job police that arrived to tell me my job was painfully un-essential but the news was still no surprise to me. Fair enough, I said.

I’ll admit it here and now, as scary as it was to face the fact that I’d need to collect unemployment — what did that even mean? I’d never so much as taken a vacation that wasn’t just to go home and visit my family. I could count the number of sick days I’ve used on one hand…— deep down, I felt a relief that I’d never known or expected. I was so, so happy to have permission to rest.

What I wasn’t prepared to admit to anyone at that time was that I was horribly burnt out. The quality of my work was nowhere near my best, I was exhausted and unhealthy, I hated my job. A lot of factors played into the arrival at this junction but I believe that it was inevitable. I had over-done it, the industry had done to me what it has done to countless others. It had chewed me up and turned me into a bitter, angry person. People looking in from the outside saw a fair bit of young success but what no one could see was my desperation, shame, and pain.

12 years of 10, 15 the occasional 18-hour shifts with minimal conflict on a good day. On a bad day having things thrown at me, being called names, insulted, ignored, abused by chefs who never bothered to learn how to be decent people or managers because it’s more romantic to be broken. Finishing off every shift with a couple of drinks (at least) to take the edge off and the pain out of my back. The weekends binging on drugs and alcohol justified by everyone I knew doing exactly the same thing. Living paycheck to paycheck, not only because of my irresponsibility but because I’d never been paid a living wage to begin with. Savings account, who? Not going to the doctor, because health insurance was occasional at best and what is the doctor going to tell me anyway? Stop drinking so much? Duh. Not being able to maintain a healthy relationship with anyone because instead of addressing or dealing with my trauma I plugged into it every day, I used it as my fuel, I spiraled.

Very few people know how deep I fell into depression because of the lifestyle I was living. At the very same time that I was on the team receiving three Michelin stars I was living in the most expensive city in the US, making 50k a year, contemplating suicide, and making regular trips out to the Golden Gate Bridge to ideate my exit. I had chosen to thrive in the upper echelon of American restaurants, I wanted to be the best and all of my pain felt like the price I had to pay for it.

When a few months of the pandemic had passed and my former colleagues were saying things like, ‘I can’t wait to work service again and get back into the kitchen!’ I realized I was not sharing their experience. I was exercising regularly for the first time in my life, eating square meals not hunched over a sink or crouched on a milk crate in a restaurant basement and I had seen the sunshine every day. I was baking things I wanted to make for the people I loved and not out of obligation to a company I didn’t give a damn about.

There was absolutely no way I was going back.

With a lot of support from my friends and family, I made the very hard decision to pursue a new career. Not only because it seemed prudent but I couldn’t stomach the thought of just waiting around. I am at my core a person who needs a task and so I found one, and this is where you find me. A year later, and nearly finished with the program I chose. It is incredibly hard to learn something new and something foreign, take my word for it. Not to mention doing something I’m simply not a natural at like I am at making food. I’m doing okay, but I’m not doing great.

I’m also terrified, not only about the obvious and very real potential of failure but more about how scared I am to see myself as someone who doesn’t provide hospitality for people anymore. My identity was so thoroughly enmeshed with my work, separating who I am from it has been more painful than I could have ever imagined. I feel like I have lost myself, I am adrift.

Remembering my ‘why’ has been hard, and I guess that’s a reason I felt like putting this experience in writing. I needed to remember that there was a real, tangible thing I’ve been chasing and that thing is my own wellbeing. I want to be emotionally and physically healthy. I want to have financial stability, and I want to find real healthy love that I can nurture from a place of sincerity. I want all of this more than I want any amount of recognition or perceived success.

I also think my ‘why’ could be to help other people like me. At this time, when restaurants are beginning to hire again and the possibility is there, whispering to me, ‘it would be so simple to just go back, so much easier.’ I have to remember how close I was to literally ending my life because of a job. We don’t talk about this enough even still, after losing so many of our brigade to the pressure. Whether we know each other, worked together, follow each other on Instagram, or don’t know one another at all I can tell you that your happiness is worth more than any chef’s ‘vision’ will ever be.

What made me good at the work I did wasn’t that I learned to be viciously mean, cunning and ambitious, (those qualities helped of course) but it was that I naturally love to take care of people. I’m a nurturing person, and the best people I know in hospitality are just the same. So if you’re sticking with it and dusting your non-slips off to get back to work please don’t forget to watch out for one another first. Look for the signs, especially after the year we’ve had.

As for me, until the day comes when the industry is so changed that everyone in it can make a living wage, and care for themselves and their families I refuse to contribute to its dysfunction. I will be sad, and things will be challenging and the road will continue to be lonely but I know now that I’m worth more and I’m prepared to remind anyone else the same if you ever forget. What makes food great is the people who make it. And if you aren’t okay, it’s okay to say so. I’m here for you, too if you ever need me.