You may know, or better yet you should know, the Taylor Swift song “Begin Again”; a genius whimsical piece of growth and desire between a new relationship and an old flame. Although the song was about getting out of a toxic relationship and finding your self-worth, my obsession with the song doesn’t stem from a toxic ex (that’s so 2019). Instead, my connection with the song comes from a singular set of lyrics: “but on a Wednesday in a cafe, I watched it begin again.”
I got a job as a Barista at a local cafe when I found myself in one of the most emotionally challenging parts of my life. Looking back I honestly do not know where I would be today without those 6 months I spent burning my hands and lugging milk up flights of stairs every day. I had just left my so-called dream school after one semester of some sort of covid zoom fever dream and was feeling lost and very depressed. I just felt like everything in my life that was supposed to be going smoothly was crumbling down all around me. Not to mention my anxiety disorder made the chaos and uncertainty of the world during a global pandemic even harder to navigate. It was almost as if the consistency and repetitiveness of the job was something I yearned for after whatever the heck 2020 was.
Beginning again
After my first few days of training as a barista, I could see my life truly “beginning again,” not to mention how I started my job on a Wednesday…a little too coincidental if you ask me. The quick pace job of a barista may seem intimidating from an onlooker’s point of view, but when you are in the heat of the moment, it is almost calming to witness everything fall into place. Not to mention sprinting around for 8 hours a day was more than a welcome distraction from the things I was dealing with in my life outside of the cafe.
Growth
I have always considered myself to be more of an introvert, so the decision to pick such a customer service-based job was not a decision I made without hesitation. During the end of the summer, before I headed off to college, my job made me realize something important about my life- that I should be so proud of how far I had come.
Middle school Kara would never have been able to deal with the situations I had to deal with at work: diffusing problems with customers, staying calm in stressful moments, and not crying the moment someone raised their voice at me. If anything, take this as a sign to jump out of your comfort zone even when you don’t think you can’t handle any more stress in your life. Become a barista; you’ll make some of your best friends and who knows, maybe you’ll learn some cool latte art along the way.