Chaos, But Make It Cute
Oh my god, where do I even start?
The last six months have been a blur. New York, Houston, Nashville, Mexico City, Portugal, London, Berlin and of course the Arctic! Honestly, it’s been non-stop. At one point a dog destroyed my whole bedroom and shat on my bed, at another I was running pop-ups whilst being given a life supply of edibles. Sleeping with a samurai sword, people from Pujol knowing about my pop-up. Ice fishing the last stop before the North Pole. Add in exhaustion, a few hilarious disasters and a certain new person in my life… and basically none of the timelines make sense anymore. Hiii guys..
Honestly, I hate that I haven’t posted anything or written a newsletter in so long, but this year just ran away from me.
For those of you who’ve been reading me for a while, you’ll remember that last year ended in a whirlwind: finishing my East Africa and South Africa trip, going back to work, nursing a heartbreak, just doing what I do. It was a lot, and now I’m like when is it not a lot.
This year, people kept saying, “Rez, it looks like you’ve had the most incredible year.” And they’re not wrong. I am so grateful for the beauty and growth, but it was also incredibly hard. Behind the scenes I carried hurt, anger, grief, feelings I don’t like sitting with. For months, they were right at the surface. It took time to get to where I am now, where they no longer dominate my days.
Two truths coexisted: the hardest period of my life and at the same time, the most amazing. My therapist put it best: I’ve been navigating my past, my present, and my future all at once. Grieving, trying to stay present and still imagining what’s next. Balancing all three is no small task.
And when you’re also trying to show up well in a new relationship, to be a stand-up person, it pulls you up. It forces you to face things you might otherwise bury. Being with someone new made me confront parts of myself I never wanted to look at. Some I still don’t love. Some parts I’m still working on.
This has been one of the busiest and most dynamic years of my life. So much happened it feels like it should have stretched over two or three years, but instead it crammed itself into one long summer. Technically it’s been about six months since I left my job, though really the shift started before then.
Looking back, April feels like the true beginning. That first week in America was chaos, but afterwards things started to make sense. Not easier, but clearer. It was still exhausting. I remember looking at myself in the mirror before one of my pop-ups, completely drained and saying: “Rez, you’ve got this. You are literally the business.” There wasn’t room for a day off. I had to keep cooking, keep showing up, keep pouring love and energy into it all.
Of course, with all of that came the grind. Running kitchens is brutally hard work. Guests demolish the food in fifteen minutes and have an incredible night, which is beautiful, but behind the scenes it’s draining, exhausting, and deeply labour-intensive. Still, I love seeing how I’ve grown, how my techniques have sharpened, how much I’ve learned. And I know there’s still room to improve: my finishes, my plating, my finesse. To really nail those things, I need to stay in one place a little longer. Because in a one-night-only situation, in a brand-new kitchen, you only get one shot to get it right.
People keep asking me where I’ve been. The truth? All over the place. Some of the trips might have been unnecessary, but each one taught me something. Even the detours felt like lessons really.
On my gloomy grey days I do think about Mozambique a lot. I went there last year and I went to many places this year too but a lot of it was for work so it’s a very different feel. It’s rare to know in real time that you’re living some of the best days of your life, and that period of my life was exactly that. Waking up to waves, walking twenty steps from the garden to the beach, kids crab-fishing in the morning light. The house I stayed in was simple and perfect: balcony views of the ocean, salt in the air, nothing but peace. I wrote a lot there, sitting by the window while the waves crashed. That place will probably be unrecognisable in five years, swallowed up by resorts, which makes those memories even more precious.
And I wanted to talk about this because in therapy I get asked about my happy place a lot and this is what always comes up for me. What comes up for you?
And then there’s the shedding. Bloody hell.
This year hasn’t just been about moving, travelling and working even though that’s literally what I’ve been doing. It has been about letting go. People, habits, whole ways of living.
It’s wild too, watching life pan out. In my mid-twenties I thought 30s were miles away, practically ancient. But here we are, and we’re all still figuring it out. You can’t take away the journey though. It has been mad, beautiful and sometimes brutal.
If I had to sum up the biggest lesson of all, it’s this: live as authentically as you can.
Because if you don’t, you’re doing yourself a disservice. If that makes you look mad, or crazy, or “too much,” so be it. People have called me all of those things. And they’re right. But I also don’t give a fuck anymore. I’m in my own lane, doing what makes me happy. And that’s cool. It’s freeing.
And now here I am, looking up on the 3rd of October, thinking: How did all this happen? Think of this as a little starter to all my other random stories, I’ll be back soon to actually get into the nitty gritty of it all!
The track I’ll leave you with today is Feel So Good by Mase.
Love,
Rez x