I don’t miss my old employees. I miss my friends I made from work over the years but not the employees. I still talk to most of the people I made friends with through the service industry or at least engage with them on here but the others not so much. Not sure what prompted this proclamation it might’ve been while I was scrolling through my memories. I go back about as far as 2012 before I start reading the perspective of a completely different human being.

I was quite the NPC in my steakhouse days. I looped da loop for years doing my thing. I was a brainwashed corporate manager for years. I was structured for the system. A robot of handbooks and lineups. The steakhouse was my military training sans guns. I squished most of the era into a small file in my pocket and stored it away forever. I made a small handful of forever friends but we are all slowly fading away in memory. Not a stab at any of them at all life goes on is all. Activities and prerogatives change over time.

We are still only a phone call away.

Southern friends are the same. We don’t chat much anymore but I’ll see one or two faces who will come by to say hi and I’m appreciative of it.

I used to think I was a good boss but I look back on my career and cringe at a few behavioral issues I had. I’m not harping on it anymore we all fuck around with bad decisions in our lives. Observing is learning. I’m not reliving the past I’m adjusting from my past experiences.

My brief mentioning of not missing my employees came from reading my old posts. It’s a progression of what started out as frustration to a daily basis of dealing with staffing shortages. I read them and my memory clicks with it like a Lego.

I can read a status update and feel what I felt 10 years ago. It’s surreal. I wouldn’t do it again. I wouldn’t go back to the steakhouse, I wouldn’t leave to open my own spot.

I just wouldn’t.

There no perfect insight as to why. I don’t look back fondly of the work I’ve done. The people I’ve made friends with? Yes. Not the jobs.

I’m good in this field. Better than average. Doesn’t mean I chose to do it.

I’ve always been curious about the perspective of someone who has worked the same job/position their entire life. The teacher who starts teaching right out of college and then 40 years later they get their cupcake party and go home to retire. Not knocking this at all it seems rather peaceful in comparison to mine.

Work has been my life

Work had been the bane of my stress

It’s taken valuable time from my life

I went when I didn’t want to

I worked when I probably shouldn’t have

It’s broken my body and mind over the years. I’ve never worked a job that had a healthy cadence. The speed goes from first gear to fifth in seconds. The only desk job I ever had my mind screamed “this ain’t it boss” and I left after 3 months. People are always “I wouldn’t know what to do with my free time if I was retired” and I’m like let me have it then. I’ll figure it out.

No one is to Blame by Howard Jones is in my ears.

Well played

I’m pushing a button of steam here y’all. I’m not venting I’m releasing. I have to make myself say these things out-loud to put it away. I don’t fixate on my old self like I used to. It’s a different approach for me now.

I’m witnessing and regarding

Shedding

Hopefully evolving.

Evolving is perpetual if you allow it. And you should we are made of clay not stone

My memories reflect that. That’s the only reason why I go back to read them. Absorb them like a bounty towel.

My wife and I were having a discussion about my early life and childhood. I was referencing about how my life would’ve changed had I not moved to Piedmont. It’s always felt like an obligatory side quest during those years.

“Do you think your life would’ve completely changed had your parents stayed together?”

I responded with “I’d probably still be sitting here with you on the sofa.” I think part of our lives are scripted. Like we read the script and thought “yeah I choose this series for my life”

I look back at all the clogs and setbacks I’ve experienced and see them as paths with pauses.

As I look back on some memories I can always recall some sort of fateful hand pushing me from certain decisions that would’ve completely changed the trajectory of my life. A shield or protector of sorts sometimes and others it was the bully pushing me into the deep end of the pool.

No matter how hard I tried to screw some things up, no matter how bad I imagined it to be, there has always been some cosmic deflector to keep my path in the direction it was meant to go.

Sometimes I was shielded from it, sometimes I had to paddle my legs to stay afloat.

If I gained another affliction instead of alcohol I think I would’ve bested it in the appropriate time.

I would’ve made a goal in my head to attain. It would’ve been a different mountain to climb but I would have done it.

Brevity insert – no matter the cycles I’d have endured I feel like it would all would arrive right here. I’m right where I’m supposed to be. I didn’t end up here I played a 54 year game of chess against myself to get here.

The more I recognize this game the more it makes sense.

I look back on these memories like chess moves. I’m reading the words of a completely different person. A new pawn each year. Man it took a long time to achieve this perspective. You don’t have to wait for death to rise over your body and look down at yourself. I’m doing it right now.

Another quick download has been achieved. Or maybe it was a deletion of sorts..

Is today Friday? Time is moving fast right now. Anyone else notice?

Boxes are calling. Gotta go

Peace ☮️