My sleep patterns have been all over the place this week. As have I for that matter. It’s been a good week from head to toe. I feel something shifting inside almost like a interior clutch shifting from high gear to a lucid neutral. It’s 4:28am and I’m fine. I like the early morning quiet. I like my first cup of coffee in solitude. Well not quite solitude my cat also enjoys my company this time of morning.

I feel good. My body is sore from this week’s activities and I’m most likely dehydrated from not slowing down to drink more water but my mind is clean and shiny.

My reckoning is over.

This one is not in quotations it came from me. I wrote it out to put it away. Not to bury it no this isn’t something you can bury. This is going on a mental mantle. If it were something physical it would sit next to my father’s war medals and flag.

This isn’t posturing. It’s my own personal plaque of release. It would sit next to the medals my father earned from his years of war. Mine would be a plaque signifying the years of waging mental war on myself.

We both made it out alive.

Someone or something inside of me finally gave me permission to forgive myself for what I used to be. Who I used to be.

I’ve gone through four plus years of humility and repair. A painful ritual that I allowed to strip me bare.

Let me share a brief timeline to the 5 people that read these. I will expand on this whole timeline in another journal entry. I intend to write out the whole process to release it for good.

Covid 2020 took my passion for cooking away from me. It caused me to lose my job from a business that I spent 10 years of my life to build.

Late 2020 I created Chadcuterie out of desperation to pay bills for the holiday season. I would later link up with a brewery to make my charcuterie out of their kitchen. For those three years I fought with humility and aggravation. My mental health was spiraling due to my self perceived failure of losing all of my restaurants. I went from three restaurants to working out of a 10×10 kitchen who’s facilities were slowly breaking down. No hvac, no windows I truly felt like I was placed in solitaire confinement for most of those weeks. It wasn’t degrading it was an eye opener to me just how far I had fallen. Summers were too hot to work at the brewery so I worked out of my little laundry room. A little brick mud room addition to our rental house. I had one prep table and a table top cooler that held six pans. About 18 pans short of what I needed to set up. I had three dorm coolers filled with stock in three different rooms. Our fridge was full of chubs and cheeses. Our regular groceries be damned. I hated working from home and it showed. I’d make boxes and then sit at the brewery for hours while I waited for pickups.

All the while I was struggling with alcohol and keeping my family together.

I’d stand in the little brewery kitchen in tears of frustration. I didn’t see myself or my business growing I saw us fading. Each week if the business was slow I’d think to myself “Is this finally it? Is it over?” Some weeks were hairy but there always seemed to be just enough to keep me going. A random large order would fall into my lap.

I picked myself up a little three years ago and decided vodka was no longer a friend of mine so we parted ways. For good. Several things seemed to fall in line after that kicked in.

Sobriety isn’t a fix all. But it certainly is the bridge.

When I put the bottle down I put myself in what I refer to as my reckoning.

The reckoning was created to fix me. All of me.

My drinking

My body

My mind

My habits that I considered toxic

My narcissism

My lifestyle

My way of thinking. Rewiring my brain

All of these I considered an impossible task.

After the brewery closed I put all my inventory on a rolling cart and moved it to the meadery behind me. Once again I was borrowing someone else’s kitchen to keep my work flow. Shoving three coolers worth of inventory into one. Shutting down my entire set up every night and starting all over again in the morning. I pushed myself a little harder that Christmas season to make some cash flow to find a new spot. Not a borrowed kitchen but my own.

I spent every available moment building that deli with my own hands. Back injuries, tears and fingers crossed that I didn’t spend all of my capital before I opened up.

I opened up and then immediately shut back down because I finally caught Covid after missing it for four years.

On my one free day I’d jaunt up to chimney rock and camp overnight for a reset.

Then came hurricane helene. She shut me down for 8 days and to add insult to injury she wiped out literally all of my camping resets.

All

Of

Them

That deli left a bad taste in my mouth for months. It took 6 months for us to make up. We are fine now.

Something clicked in me on February 2nd while camping in Beaufort. I had been dealing with some emotional issues. I could feel some of the old me creeping back. My mind found something it couldn’t put down. It’s still in my hand I haven’t let go of it. Don’t think I ever will, I’m not suppose to. It changed me. I’m still not sure what it is/was.

After that my thinking has shifted focus. I’ve been taking it for a ride.

The last few months I stepped up my meditation and changed some frequencies in my ears. In my head I keep repeating slow things down. Let things go. Not in these exact words. It’s all my approach for internal peace.

Harmony.

My reckoning has put me through a rigid process of change. I’ve only shared 2% of what I’ve dealt with. From the second I wake up until I lay down for bed my mind focused on one thing.

Healing

How do you know that you’ve healed? There’s not a text book giving you details. You don’t look under the bandaid to see if it’s stopped bleeding.

While journaling yesterday he wrote “your reckoning is over”

Who is he? Can’t say for sure. It wasn’t me. I was only watching me type it out. Ever had someone type your words for you? First time here.. I’ve read that sentence over a hundred times

Your reckoning is over

Your reckoning is over

Your reckoning is over

So

It’s over. I’m letting it go right here. I’ll release it in full scale soon but today I officially close the book on it.

4 years man. 7.5 % of my life.

Focus works yall. Follow your soul. It’s talking to you all the time.

Peace ☮️