I’ll go back and read some of my journal entries from the past from time to time. Usually in my FB memories I enjoy reading to see what was on my mind during the annual reminders.

My writing style

My voice

My words

My mood

I threw my last chef coat into the trash last year on this day. Sort of like a shedding of my last coat of arms to the service industry. If anything it was symbolic. Fairly certain I was home alone for the weekend as I am now. This is usually the time frame my family is off to see other family members in the gulf. I don’t mind the quiet time at home. Not that long ago I would’ve raged downtown or at one of my bars until 2am. Driven home with one drunken eye open with a bag of Taco Bell or Jack in the box in my passenger seat. I’d wake up full of shame and hate for drinking so much the night before. I’d be prepping brunch with a mimosa loaded with red bull and a smidge of vodka at 9am to shake the jitters off of me. Probably wearing the chef coat I’d thrown in the trash a year ago today.

The ritualistic approach of dismissal was meant to be a little over the top. I wanted it to mean something to me.

Me- “that guy is gone, that ship has sailed, get him as fucking far away from me as you can”

The guy in the chef coat.

I’m removed. From all of it. I rarely go out to eat anymore because a part of me buzzes with the industry as soon as I walk in the door. I watch the show because I was in it. I thought I was the star and maybe for a brief time I was. I loved the notoriety. The ego fed off of it.

If I do go out to eat I try to dissociate myself from it. In my head I never finished climbing the ladder I was always a few rungs away. I’m not afraid to admit I get a little jaded when I see others be successful in this business. “What did they do that I didn’t?” I’m not harping on any individual or group specifically it’s just a general jab at the industry. If it’s my friends I’m the first one to shake a pom- pom for them. More than I do for my own business.

There will always be the what if?

What if I had 8 restaurants now?

What if Southern stayed as the only one?

What if the band had stayed together? Let’s be honest the energy never recovered once everyone started to split.

Chad would you trade it all in for notoriety and success? Would 10 restaurants do it for you?

Best restaurant in the upstate?

Best chef? I put the plaques in a box in storage along with the others.

Big montebello home or N main.

Magazine articles

Maybe a fancy James Beard award or a rubber tire star?

10 years ago that’s what I wanted. I was ready to sacrifice everything for it

Everything

And I did

And I still missed the mark

I used to get so angry thinking about how I lost it all.

Bitter. The bitterness stuck around much longer. Hell it still crops up on a bad day. Like that last mosquito bite in mid fall. “Oh you’re still around you little sonofabitch?”

*squash

I’ll hit 6 years away from the restaurant business soon. Deli isn’t a restaurant. Theres no bar, no staff except for one and he’s more of a friend than employee.

6 years.

I’ve been in a constant vortex of evolution since then. Being pulled towards my center. Plucking away old habits. Good and bad. Even the good ones need some refreshments.

People say “write a book Chad”

I am.

Everyday. Writing a new me. When I’m done then maybe, a book, another story. I’m waiting for mine to level out some more. I’ve written a few hundred thousand words in the last two years.

Releasing

Examining

Reorganizing

My dissertation

Working on my masters degree in Chad studies

I’m almost there man. I can smell something coming over the horizon.

Attraction

Connection

I could write a book on just the last 6 years of my life. That’s when I started listening.

Remembering who I was before I started believing everyone else’s definition of who I should be.

That’s what it’s all about folks.

Being locked out of your own self for so long

Somedays 6 years seems like an entire lifetime ago because it has been so deliberate. Articulate, I suppose because I’ve been documenting it daily. A blueprint of change. An architectural cocoon.

Alchemy of mental lead to gold. When was the last time I referred to being depressed? Well over a year.

I’m not selling books to anyone or a self help course.

I’m working towards who I’m suppose to be is all. Nothing more.

The last 6 years have been amazingly hard.

I paired these two words together on purpose.

It’s been fucking hard

But

It’s been fucking amazing.

The struggle complements the payoff.

You can’t have strength without weakness. One can’t exist without the other.

Each year I smile just a little more.

Peace.