Wednesday, April 28, 2010

I don't feel like it!! aka Can we fix it? aka There should be crying in baseball

Pick your preferred title for this one. I couldn't decide.
Today, last week.. lately has kinda sucked. Not sucked in the way that getting cancer or having chemo sucked... but yet.. it sucked.
There were lots of high points too, but today we are talking about suckage. I know suckage is not a word, but it seems to work here.
I don't really get depressed, or so I have always thought. I get knocked over, I get up, dust off and I keep going. Today, honestly I don't feel like it. I don't feel like getting up. I feel like sitting in the mud puddle in this sandbox not caring that there is cat poo in the sand and rain falling on my head.
A friend is dying of breast cancer and I am scared and sad for her. I am scared and sad for all the other people who have this cruddy disease. I am scared for myself and feeling kind of ashamed of feeling that when I am not the one dying. I am mad at the people who say things like " you beat cancer" when they have no idea whether I or any other cancer patient has cancer growing in them at this very moment.
I'm really, really angry at the fact that my business is so painfully slow I can barely pay my staff. I'm angry at myself for having a business that is not going well, because I am the owner and there is really no one else to blame it on. I am angry that cancer, recession, cash flow, taxes and all the other crap that makes being in business really hard is not helping things go well. I waffle between blaming external forces for my business being slow and blaming myself, where in reality it is a combination of many things, a great number of which I have little control over.

Last week I got to see my best friend from college days in New York City before she moved to Australia. It was so incredibly great to see her I cannot tell you. Although it made me acutely aware of my lack of perfect friends that actually live nearby, and yes I feel guilty that I feel that. I was alone for a lot of the trip in order to stay near her and be available when she had time to hang out. The airline lost my luggage and the sales were so bad at the store I really couldn't afford to buy new clothes so I wore mostly the same clothes for 3 days. I budgeted for a few small things and my meals and not much else. Add those things to the standard overtiredness from planning a trip and travelling to some bad news I got the day before I left and it added up to a physically and emotionally draining trip.

The biggest business news of late is that I have to move my store to another location. My landlord has let us know that he is not renewing our lease in September. This is cruddy, but after a few tears and annoyance I know this is going to be ok. The store has been good but not great,and we can find a place to include the curly hair services we have been working toward offering. This location seems great but has never given us the sales for the price we pay for it. The day before I left for my trip I found out that the landlord has apparently signed a lease for this space with another tenant in this building, a tenant who has only been here for a year whose business has been promoted readily by me since the day they opened. The details are unimportant but it looks quite likely that the tenant and the landlord have planned this for more than a year. Maybe they haven't, it's just how it looks. So, from my point of view it feels like I have been played for a fool and all along the other guy has known he was taking over the storefront I have spent 5 years pouring my time, energy and money into.

C'est la Vie! Can we Fix it? YES WE CAN! ... this I am not worried about. BUT today it is another bit of cat poop in my sandbox, another rain cloud over my head, another shovel of suckage to add to my pile.
I am not a get even kind of person. I don't give much time to anger or lengthy bouts of sadness. If I feel those things I feel them, scream at someone or cry a bit, work it out and move along. Not this time. I don't feel like it. I don't feel like doing anything that isn't absolutely imperative, well except for eating lots and lots of candy, that- I seem to be accomplishing very well. I don't feel like doing anything except for staying up late and watching crappy TV and sleeping late to make up for it. I don't want to be nice to anyone, or pretend that I am in a good mood. I just want to do stuff that makes me happy and pretend everything else can be put off.
I was raised by a mom who acted like making mud pies with her children and teaching the neighbourhood kids to waltz was far more important than grocery shopping, cleaning or any of the other trappings of a real grown up life. I think she was right in so many ways about priorities, but sadly my life does not lend itself to this kind of flighty behaviour as often I would like. I wonder if she was like this to avoid the grown up stuff, the suckage. I do think sometimes that I go to this mindset as default, as protection from the suckage.
Since I am already sitting in the mudpuddle in the sandbox and all.. I guess I could just start making mud pies... that would be an efficient use of time huh?(see previous post on efficiency) Ah well, just writing all this down has perked me up a bit, I kicked come cat poo out of my sandbox, brushed some sand off my foot... but don't worry, I will never, no matter how bad things get bury my head in the sand.

Oh, and as for the crying in baseball thing... I thing a lot more things would go better for a lot of people if tears were more acceptable in stressful situations. I would be happy to not cry at weddings if only it were ok for me to cry in a business meeting when things are not going well.

2 comments:

~TigereyeSal~ said...

Grrrrr- it should not be this difficult to be a grown up... Maybe the rain will ease up soon, though.

bachwords said...

I come with an endless supply of Lindt chocolate...and I know how to make mudpies with cat poo in them... ;-)

T xo