I’ve spent six months building up my life in Melbourne, a city with one of the best coffee and food scenes in the world. Serving in Bar Margaux, brasserie of my dreams, walking around a pulsing musical and artistic city with the sun shining, it was hard to believe an invisible pandemic was about to arrive on the isolated shores of Australia. 

In the style of the typical apocalyptic movie, I began to read and hear whispers of a virus spreading slowly from Asia across the world last December. Then suddenly, like a switch being turned on, every topic of conversation became centred on the Coronavirus. Within days I began to be bombarded by warnings from friends and family all over the world that “it” will soon arrive and “it” will get bad, just like it has been getting back home. 

Melbourne city is still operating and buzzing right now, but there is no toilet paper or soap to be found anywhere. It feels tempting to downplay the dire warnings from the experts and believe the fiction—that the virus won’t impact Australia as much, that as an island it’s safe and that the government will protect us.

As new restrictive laws were introduced daily, customer numbers in our brasserie dropped dramatically, hours were cut and staff meetings set. Announcements were tinged with regret and tears as bosses informed me and my co-workers that we were facing the worst case scenario. I felt lucky—not every company gives out bonuses to vulnerable employees, organises food hampers and attempts to find their staff work. The love I still feel for my company and co-workers is akin to a second family.

When I was abruptly laid off and national borders began to close overnight, I instantly wished I was a child again and that my parents would solve all my problems and kiss it better. I finally made the calculated decision to book my flight home to Ireland. It weighed heavily on me as it meant the evaporation of plans from a more innocent time—to drink wine in Margaret River, to visit family in Wellington, to sling cocktails at my dream bar and to live with my new best friend. I am faced abruptly with the tenuous reality of the hospitality industry and of the sudden need to say goodbye to everyone that has come to mean so much to me in such a short space of time. 

With that hard reality check comes the appreciation and gratitude of what I still have. I am privileged to be able to travel home to be with my family, to feel loved and supported from half way across the world and to have a roof above my head and food. It truly puts into perspective what you fundamentally need in life and your priorities. As it currently stands, I don’t know the future but I’d rather face it with my family around me.

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