Month: April 2018

Do you ever want to do something… you hear about it or a thought pops into your head and you think “YEAH! That sounds AWESOME!” “I can TOTALLY do that!”

and then there are various things that happen depending on your personality and commitment to things:

1.)  FUCK YES I am going to buy ALL THE THINGS necessary to make this and it’s going to be super easy and amazing. But you lack the discipline to actually sit down and DO THE THING so the stuff sits forever as you move onto your next super awesome totally gonna happen but this time definitely  idea. Cough cough this is you mom.

2.) You get excited about the idea, but then you think about the fine print before jumping in… am I REALLY prepared to take this on? What if XYZ happens? You know what, I’m ok with that, I think I am willing to do the work! Then you actually see it through. This person is rare. If this is you, congratulations my friend!

3.) You immediately panic after getting excited. OMG WHAT IF I FAIL and I AM TOTALLY GOING TO FAIL and WHY DO I EVER HAVE IDEAS I’M TERRIBLE. FORGET IT TIME TO WATCH NETFLIX. My friend, you need a drink and a xanax.  Also your bitch ass is way more awesome that you think it is so STOP DOUBTING YOURSELF 😉

4.) Yep. DOING IT. Goes balls in. Then realizes… this shit is HARD. BYE FELICIA. This is the person who makes lots of announcements on social media….  and ya’ll are crazy if you think I’m calling anyone out on this one!

5.) That WOULD be awesome but you know what, I don’t think I’m up for it. For whatever reason the amount of work it would entail just seems arduous and I don’t think it’s for me. I’m going to keep looking for what I REALLY want to do!  GO GIRL! ADVOCATE FOR YOURSELF AND WHAT YOU WANT!

 

You know… complete honesty here – I think we are ALL THESE PEOPLE at some point in our lives. Depending on our age, maturity level, what we have experienced, and just whether we have found our “thing.” I know I certainly have been.

I’ll never forget in high school when I was in theatre – we rehearsed every day after school, from 3-5 and 6-8 with that hour dinner break in there… and I heard so many times – WOW that is a LOT of time! What a lot of work.

and I NEVER felt that way. I adored rehearsal – every time I stepped into that theatre it was magic. In my bones, I felt alive, and that I was in the exact place that I was meant to be. I didn’t get along with many of the people I worked with but I didn’t care one bit. I was there for the theatre and the rest melted away.

 

That love, that passion is what life is about. If the work associated with something is a non issue – you are living the dream. FIND that thing. Whatever it takes, find it.

This is how I measure business ventures and make decisions in my adult life. If the work associated with something doesn’t make me cringe, you better damn well know I am going to see it through.  And if it does? I don’t do it. It doesn’t matter what it is or how lucrative it could be. I am here to enjoy my minutes and my hours,. I am here to be happy. And so are you. Listen to your gut. You owe it to yourself, your spouse, your kids, and your parents.

You want to know how this thought process started????? I was reading a book and though “Man, I write better than this. I should write a novel!  I love writing descriptors and opening paragraphs! But plot development. Research. FTHATSHIT AMICRAZY? HAVEILOSTMYMIND?” Nah I’m good, I’ll just stick to my blog.”

Back to my wine.

 

It’s gloomy outside, again. As I sit here at my kitchen table trying to steal a moment to catch my thoughts, I see the little white flecks of snow fighting to be relevant in April. They know their time is up, but still they’re clinging to winter because it’s all that exists to them. It’s easy to blame snow and this perpetual winter for whatever dismal feelings we’re entangled with but you are not doomed to depression. None of us are.

When I was first married, I was depressed. So was my husband. We both hated our jobs, desperately wanted to buy a house, to start a family, and if we couldn’t do those things – at least to travel and do something interesting!! We could do none of those things. The economy was in the tank, our student loans were suffocating, and our wages weren’t enough. Then we lost our jobs (on the SAME DAY! I mean honestly, this is like being struck by lightning). Things got worse.

I saw people on facebook buying houses, cars, announcing pregnancies, and I was jealous. I. was. so. jealous.

It turned me into the worst version of myself. So I got off facebook. I was gone for a couple of years because even in that pit that I was in, I knew that seeing everyone else’s “success” (that is in quotation marks because let’s be real here – NO ONE has everything as perfect as it looks online!) was making me worse.

I was a crap friend during this period of time, I know that now. I sort of knew it then but I was too deep into my own sense of self pity to really identify or do anything about it.

Fast forward a couple years and things got even worse. There were even more layoffs and unfortunate luck which at it’s lowest point landed us pregnant with our first child moving into my parents small and cluttered home.

I hit my own personal bottom shortly thereafter with an extremely difficult baby who didn’t sleep, cried constantly, and no privacy to just deal with it all. I’m sure I had postpartum depression and anxiety looking back, but again, I was too deep in it at the time to be introspective.

I’ll never forget when we were having a moving sale out of our little 700 square foot rental house and not one but THREE well meaning women asked if we were moving to upgrade the size of our home to fit our new family (I was obviously pregnant at the time), and it took every ounce of strength I had to answer that no, my husband has lost his job again and we were moving our lives into one bedroom in my parents house without crying. Someone else will get to enjoy the daffodils and tulips I painstakingly planted in the fall when they bloom come spring. All the thought and excitement that went into making a nursery in this small but cozy home was gone in an instant.

You might be wondering at this point (HOLY HELL DOES SHE RAMBLE FOREVER ABOUT CRAP THAT I DON’T CARE ABOUT ?!?!?) what in the heck the point of me telling you all this is.

My point is that things didn’t get better until I decided it was time for them to. I went to see a therapist sometime around my son’s first birthday because I finally got to a place where I knew I needed help. She told me something that changed my outlook on everything and I will never forget it. I had lamented to her that we wanted to have 2 children close together and that I felt so trapped because we couldn’t even entertain the idea of getting pregnant with our second while subsisting in one bedroom at my parents house. She said Why not? Why can’t you get pregnant if that is 100% what you want? What’s the worst that will happen? You’re already living your own worst case scenario.

And all I could think was HOLY SHIT SHE’S RIGHT!

All this time I was angry and full of self pity because I felt that I had no choices of my own to make. I felt that I was just being kicked around by the world and there was nothing I could do about it.

This one thing made me realize that we ALWAYS have choices. ALWAYS. I talked to my husband and we decided to wait on getting pregnant again until we were in a better living situation. But we made that decision ourselves. And it felt amazing.

This is where my story changes. I stopped focusing on what we “couldn’t” have and started directing my energy toward prepping for WHAT and WHEN we WOULD have it. I searched areas for the most affordable tax rates and how much house we could afford when our job situation was stable again. I talked to bankers and realtors to assess where we were and how much we would need to save and what debts were most important to pay off.

I poured my mental energy into expanding my eBay business so that I could save money faster and have a reliable income to contribute to my family even though I stayed home with my son.

I called Early Intervention to asses my son because my gut told me that little ones his age weren’t supposed to be as hard and demanding as he was (spoiler alert – he DESPERATELY needed that therapy and it was probably one of the best decisions I ever made!)

I stopped feeling like a victim and started actively working to change the things in my life that were making me unhappy.

And now? I do it every day. That snow may be EXTREMELY out of place with lilacs starting to bloom but the cold just makes my hot coffee taste better and allows me to wear a cozy sweater. When I can walk outside in short sleeves I’ll appreciate it that much more. Plus, if this is one day where the mud is frozen and it’s not traipsed all over my house, I’ll take it!

The birds know spring is coming, they sing and call to one another despite the chill in the air and they will not let their impending plans be deterred by something as unpredictable as nature.