It was the end of a relatively uneventful 2009 and the new year was just weeks away. That wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, it’s just where I was in my life at that time. I had graduated from the University of North Carolina at Wilmington the previous year and spent that whole summer attempting to surf and going out with friends. Early that fall, just a few months later, I finally got a job waiting tables at a ritzy, upscale joint near Wrightsville Beach. We only opened in . . .

It was the end of a relatively uneventful 2009 and the new year was just weeks away. That wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, it’s just where I was in my life at that time. I had graduated from the University of North Carolina at Wilmington the previous year and spent that whole summer attempting to surf and going out with friends. Early that fall, just a few months later, I finally got a job waiting tables at a ritzy, upscale joint near Wrightsville Beach. We only opened in . . .