Waking up would be a better introduction. I stayed up until 11 last night to watch a concert which is around 2 hours later than normal for me. I was close to emulating a Snicker’s commercial I was about 5 minutes away from going full diva.

I like my sleep y’all. I will be extra extra to work with today. Speaking of extra I received a phone call for a last minute grazing table in Fountain Inn for this afternoon. Wasn’t on my schedule until yesterday afternoon. Today will be fun.. I’m grateful for the opportunity a friend that also does charcuterie is thoughtful enough to send business my way when she’s not available. Very classy.

I head to Charleston right after we drop the table off.

I may have signed my deli lease on this day. I’m not sure if that means my lease just hit year 2 out of 3 I haven’t looked at it since the day I signed it. I didn’t announce my new business until early April.

Just looked at it. Yep I’ve got one year left.

Tic tok you don’t stop stop.

I always have in my mind that it’s closer to July only because that’s when I opened and started paying the lease.

It’s fine

I’m fine

I use my Facebook memories to check in my old self. Where my mind was at the time.

Was I drinking when I posted that? Most likely I always liked to speak online after about 4 vodkas. It also makes it real easy when I see others that like to do the same.

Better you than me bud.

Most of my posts I’m publicly expressing my frustrations with my daily life. I do my best to keep that energy down a tad nowadays I don’t like authoring my complaints all the time. It’s unhealthy. Getting things off your mind is healthy it’s just not intended to be megaphoned online. That’s the reason I took down my recent post about current events. I’m making noise and throwing it into the media cauldron. I’m not making a difference I’ll get people who agree to agree and piss off the ones who don’t.

I may have verbally attacked a few of our politicians online that evening. I don’t get how some of you read their posts and think “man, we ARE the greatest country in the world”. I no longer see politicians I see actors. Terrible ones. But boy some of you online will defend them like it’s your family. I’ve got a dozen screenshots to prove it. About the only thing I’m more comfortable doing than charcuterie is trolling people online. I deleted a lot of shit that night. I don’t need another person trolling my business because I called them an asshat online. The ones that use the term snowflake are usually the ones that trigger the easiest.

I’m watching my emotions closely this time of year. 6 years ago I’d have my last real high volume brunch at Southern. In three more days I’d be hugging my employees while we closed the restaurants down for Covid.

I made peace with that episode of my life mentally. It’s all good. What I’ve never made peace with are the powers that be at that time.

I sure hope a reckoning comes to them in the healthiest of ways. If you still think that Covid was random then we will have to agree to disagree. After the past couple of months your eyebrow should at least be raised.

Covid existed. I don’t deny it. It killed my mother. So whenever I hear echos of others that may have encouraged such a debacle to happen. Well it’s not healthy.

I lost the last tiny bit of trust I had for our government. There wasn’t much to begin with.

Anyway

I like tying things together when my paths tend to cross over annual happenstances.

6 years ago on this day I got into a big fight with my old partner. A big fat one. Things were tense to begin with for a bit. The upcoming germ just added to the fire. It would be the first time in my head that I thought “this isn’t working out anymore”.

Mentally I stepped away on this day. The upcoming months would solidify it.

Had Covid not come I’m not sure if it would’ve made a difference it might’ve only prolonged the inevitable. I’m not harping on this anymore I’m mapping comparisons it’s something I like to analyze.

The first month of COVID I was filled with anxiety and uncertainty. Same as the first month of signing my lease at Graze.

The same time I was building my deli I was building back Southern. I was fading away trying to rebrand three restaurants. The deli, I was pushing myself overboard building it out solo. There were many days I sat on that floor in tears asking why I was putting myself through this again. I was not in a good mental state. Failure was still fresh in my head. I was getting a lot of flashbacks in those two months. In retrospect I should’ve had help with building it out but for some reason my trail markers (that I didn’t recognize at the time) insisted that I took care of this on my own.

“Struggle will turn into strength” I recall thinking without really thinking.

I have no doubt in my mind that struggle helped with my alignment with my consciousness and ending my reckoning with myself. It was eye opening. That said I’d rather not go through that again.

I reopened Southern around the same time I opened the deli. To add a little more spice I got covid for the first time over the week it (deli) opened.

I’ll add one more and then move on because you get the point. When Helene hit I had the deli closed for the week due to a power outage. No work for an entire week. In 2020 I was on vacation in Maine. I would never return to work for my company. The same day I parted with SC is the same day I reopened my deli after Helene.

Social media archives are great when utilized for memory recall.

Is this some mystical thing Chad? Nah I don’t think so but it’s fun to watch when history repeats itself. Maybe there is some sort of cosmic connection with the stars I’m not familiar enough to know.

They always say history repeats itself. As I look at my upcoming vacation being the same time as last year. Same state too. I could go back to 2021 of that same exact time. Wasn’t the best summer of my life for sure. 2021 will go down as one of my least favorite summers. It was a struggle trying to find my way with my career, family and mental health.

But

It was the summer my mind told me to stop drinking.

“Struggle will be you strength”

Same person told me that, he was only whispering at the time.

Glad I finally started listening.

I had a good time with my fam last night. I’m meeting them in Chuck town after work. Charleston is where my little family began.

Now that’s some history worth repeating.

I’ve got about 12 feet of food to design. Time to go

Peace ☮️