4:40am

This is part of my morning routine, I have a grazing table to deliver this afternoon, some big boxes and my buddy is coming to take some long overdue pics of my deli and food. I’m excited and anxious at the same time. These type of days usually get in my head and I’d sweat it out for a few days before it happens but I’ve been pretty smooth this week.

Deliberately smooth

I’ve been on a spiritual reckoning for about 6 weeks or so. Different than what may be popping in your head when you read this.

I’m not passing around pamphlets

I’m not standing on a street corner giving sermons

I’m not joining a cult or starting one

I’m also not knocking anyone that involves themselves in any of the activities above.

To each their own

When I say I’m all over the place I truly am because I want to be. I’ve been knee deep in my mental analytics for around a year or so. By this time last year I already knew my deli was coming all I was waiting for was agreement on the lease. My days were about to get very difficult in a few months.

I’m going to scan over several things, I’m going to skip a lot of things. For now I’m just catching up. I’ll go in out on this for some time. You can’t ask “how was your trip?” when it’s just begun.

And I feel like mine has only started.

You always hear about how some people only find themselves when they’ve been stripped of everything. A complete purification of your body and soul.

Man

The last 5 years have been a ride.

Covid

Disassociated with my company I built

Alcoholism

Sold our house just to get out from under it and downsized out of necessity

I almost split my family

My mother passed

Moving from place to place to find a kitchen to work out of (more stressful than you think).

Then I opened my deli

Built it myself while I drove across town to make boxes in between. I’d stand in my deli some days with tears in my eyes overwhelmed. I’d never built anything by myself before. Not like this.

Caught Covid right when we opened for over three weeks

Back injury that put me down for a week

Main purveyor gets quite the PR explosion

Heated exchanges with one of my neighbors

Helene shuts me down for 10 days right after I opened and also geographically erased all of my decompression spots. Literally.

For about three months I’d walk into that deli and cringe. I felt like I had built my own cage of imprisonment. If you read some of my old blogs you’ll see it with your own two eyes.

Prior to all of that when I worked in the brewery and meadery I worked alone. Those of you that run your own business might get this. The brewery kitchen I worked out of for two years was the size of a medium bathroom, no ventilation other than a screen door around the corner, no windows. I had two one door coolers, 3 comp sink, prep table, 3 foot sandwich cooler and a 4 foot prep table. These facilities were handed to me with open arms. I’m not in anyway disrespecting my friends that owned the brewery. It’s quite the opposite. I’m very grateful. They have a big hand in how I manifested my deli. I had no intention of being chadcuterie after my initial holiday season.

I would push over $40k of meat and cheese out of that kitchen in 6 weeks during the holidays.

You work alone it gives you a lot of opportunities to chat with yourself. Some convos good. Some not so much, I used to get in my head until I hated myself. Especially when I was still drinking. Working solo got hard on me when I had busy days and I’d feel my sanity slowly slipping away if I got behind on work or if I ran out of an ingredient and had to leave my kitchen to grab it. My closest grocer was Swamp Rabbit. Have you ever shopped there in a hurry?

Exactly

Especially on a sunny Saturday which was always the day I ran out of things.

Somedays I felt like I was drowning and no one could hear my splashes. There was no “hey grab that pan out of dish for me” or “can you give me a hand with this please?” I’d look at the clock the wall “I have 20 minutes left to finish this and an hour of work to produce it. Summers when it got too hot I’d move most of my kitchen to my 1000 square ft home and work from there. I’d haul ass to the brewery to meet customers in the parking lot for each appointment. Sometimes I’d drive up to the brewery 8 times a day.

Meadery was much more room for me. They didn’t have a walk in so I cut my big boards down to fit in the reach in coolers. I’d rotate boards in and out of the cooler to keep them cool because they didn’t all fit. I was still in solitude there the walls were just further away. I already knew it was a temp spot when I moved in so I never got comfortable there. Just like the brewery Adam was extremely easy to work with and I’m grateful for his extended hospitality. I spent a lot of time reckoning in my head when I was there too. My mind needs distractions from itself sometimes. It wasn’t getting any.

It’s been a rough five years. I only gave you the bullet points but it’s the reckoning with yourself in the in betweens that really kick your ass. I came real close to losing it. Even after I went sober I still had a lot to fix and reckon with.

2024 was the hardest. I hid behind a face of fake confidence and made up tranquility.

In my head I was becoming that old lunatic again. Just a sober one this time. My anger issues were off the charts. My anxieties were telling me the deli would crash and burn. I was becoming that Chad that’s difficult to be around again.

Sobriety gives you a clear mind to address things . It doesn’t create the action. That’s still on you. I’m not going to beat a dead horse. I’ll end up sounding whiny to myself.

I’ll just say 2024 was hard as hell and it wasn’t suppose to be. I thought my days of struggles were behind me because of my life choices I made. My reality decided I needed more suffering.

And it put me through the ringer.

Lort bless my wife for her strength because I needed all of it and she gave it to me. She was my lean-to in a year long blizzard.

January I put myself to rest for a bit. Business was slow that month as expected and I took it slow too. I went out to find some new resets and went to heal. I was tired. I use that word in past tense now. The words you write about yourself can control your energy

Another subject for another day.

I’ve talked briefly about my little awakening in my rooftop tent on the island outside of Beaufort. I wrote it all out and then deleted it. Not ready to write about that at this time and I may never. What I experienced is difficult to describe without sounding loony or like I was drugged. I’m still processing this a month later. It felt like a self induced exorcism. Although I definitely wasn’t alone in that tent.

I’ll say this for now. I’m not the same person I was when I left for the island. I didn’t come back a competely different person but I left some parts of me behind and picked up some mental accessories along the way. Now that I’m back I feel like I’m transitioning into someone else.

My world and its perceived reality is changing. All that means is my perceptions are changing. Take that anyway you want. Trail markers that I used to see every once in a while are now blazing everywhere. I’ll just say I’m in my own little world for now.

You always hear about these stories of people who just get put through the ringer and come out ok. Not all but some seem to come out like an old cocoon and they change. I’m not going to allow my ego to come out here and say “me too!” I’m still dealing with this literal mind flip.

Divine intervention or maybe I unlocked a spec of brain matter from all of these meditation sessions.

If you really want to know if someone has changed or is transitioning ask the people that love them. They have front row seats to the show. They see it. I’m still grappling with what’s ahead.

That 2 minutes up in my tent man

Wow

You’ve never hit euphoria until you have and then the crash is exhausting. Terrifying and beautiful at the same time. I felt like I died.

I’m ankle deep right now. When I get up to my knees I’ll go further unless I get completely submerged and then who knows what I’ll have to say.

Or it just stays with me. I haven’t seen where my trail markers take me yet. Only “time” will tell.

Cheers and namaste I guess..