My year as a barista

I imagine most people that read this realise how much I like coffee. I talk about it a lot (sorry!), and a lot of my life revolves around it: cuppings, events, festivals, competitions, practices, cafe visits... you get the picture. It's weird to think that I didn't have this hobby at all one year ago. I owned an Aeropress and didn't know anything, really, about the specialty scene and in a month I will be competing at the English Aeropress championship. It's crazy how things like that work! It might be crazier to think it has only been a little over 1 year. It will be 446 days, start to finish. It's bizarre to think how far a minor(?) obsession can take you, and truly how much I have learnt in the past year. For that realisation I am happy I know I can still apply myself, pick up new hobbies, and learn something new. Last year I wasn't sure I was still able to do that. That has made me grateful. Being truthful, I don't understand what it is that I really like about coffee. I wonder if I stumbled upon the right situation and circumstances to pick up this hobby. Maybe it could have been any other interest. I wonder if I have just been unwittingly yearning for something to do with my life.

These, soon to be, 446 days have maybe felt the longest in my life. That might be due to the nature of how recent it is, but it still feels significant. I hear other talk about how fast each year goes by, and with every passing year that it gets faster. This past year hasn't. It's felt very long. I think I have changed (hopefully for the better) so much in this time. Perhaps grown up as a person.

These realisations have made me completely unsure of who I am and what I want to be. How can you be able to change so quickly? In a few years time what will I be chasing? Are other people not scared of this change? Of what I was and what I will be? I think I am still a child in this sense.

I hope that I don't lose the friendships I have made, but this feels inevitable. Probably that slowly fading kind. Where the length between each meetup gradually increases. First it's a week, then a couple, steadily into a couple months and finally years. I may even miss the regulars from the cafe... perhaps even the ones that are awful customers. How bittersweet.

Perhaps the weirder aspect of 'my year as a barista', is that in 5 years time, I will probably look back and reminisce about that single year. While currently, this year feels like my life and full interest, I'm sure shortly, it will just be a memory of that. This feels poignantly sad. Somewhat like a lost interest. A different 'me'. That path not taken. Maybe I will come back to the coffee industry in another capacity in a few years, like I think I want to. More likely I won't... call it a hunch. I so desperately want to keep this part of myself, and it is very quickly slipping through my fingers.

Don't get me wrong, despite all this introspection, I will not change my decision to leave. I have stopped enjoying hospitality, I am not very mentally well, and am quite clearly unable to balance my mental health and work simultaneously. Maybe the novelty of something new has worn off, maybe I am unable to stay in the same place for over a year. Perhaps this is all just fatuous rumination. Perhaps I am just depressed. Nethertheless the end of this short-lived era feels exceptionally melancholic. I really hope that I can remember every part of it.