The Great Escape

What would it be like to sell everything and reinvent yourself?

August 6, 2022-I have been feeling a bit frumpy lately, zero energy to do anything constructive which is not like me. I love getting things done and taking pleasure on thinking of what's next, but not lately.

My brother is thinking of closing his business, selling off everything and see where life takes him next, a reboot you may say. It will be sad to lose a blasting and paint shop in our town not to mention the people he employs and the vendors he supports. Due to out bidding he lost a major client but there are other reasons he is closing the doors. He will be in a lot better position financially than he was going into the business 7 years ago.

If I am being honest, I'm a little jealous. Don't get me wrong, I have an amazing life! I have two businesses that I get to work from home and they are both now established enough that I can pay my bills and live comfortably, knock on wood it continues this way. There are just sometimes when I feel stuck, like now, that I contemplate what it would be like to start over or turn the page to another chapter. Delete from my life all of the time and energy sucking tasks that have nothing to do with the actual business and yet has to be done to be in compliance. If you've ever seen the movie Office Space it is referred as the TPS Reports.

When my husband and I got married, we lived in a one-bedroom, Ikea-decorated apartment in El Cajon, CA. It was cozy and perfect. We had four checks to write every month: rent, electric, phone, and a truck payment. That was it. We didn't have $70,000 worth of windows to replace or spend hours registering and verifying our business on some payment website, and still, after completion, have no idea how to get payment for the project. It's like knocking on a virtual office building door, and there is not even a janitor or a security guard there to give you some direction on what to do next. When did life get so complicated? I know! It was the invention of the internet, but that's a whole other conversation.

Aww, the reboot, what would that look like? Well, not a total start over. I'd still keep my husband (wink), savings, life lessons, and of course, my dog, Tilly. Just to take a year off from everything, rent a place, and reinvent myself. Would I go to hair shows in NYC, learn French, become an avid reader, take a pottery and herbalist class, or would I just Netflix binge and get pudgy? Could I work at a salon and just enjoy working on my craft and leave the business headaches to someone else, or would I feel enslaved by losing that control?

Have you ever heard the saying, "If you took all the world's wealth, divided it evenly among the population, in a very short time the wealth would be back into the hands of those it was taken from, aka the wealthy?" What this means is that we are all creatures of habit. If you are a money spender, then it doesn't matter if you have one dollar or a million dollars; you are going to eventually squander that money away. When I am busy with work, I think, I wish I had the time to organize the bathroom cupboards, update my salon price list, paint that dining room cabinet, transplant those overgrown houseplants; then on a day like today when I have the time and no other commitments, I'm like, "Meh, it can wait."

It is a quiet Saturday August morning, 7:04 a.m. to be exact. I know, it's early for some. I've been up an hour and a half already. Old people don't need much sleep and I am 42 now after all! But I am sitting here looking at my beautiful bouquet of flowers from my hubby, eating my birthday tiramisu, and drinking my black coffee. My husband is golfing, my dog is chasing her last 8 hours of sleep with another nap. I can see my chickens and bunnies outside the window enjoying their day. It is completely still inside my house. I can only hear the thoughts inside my head, the keys on the keyboard as I type, and an occasional ding from my husband's iPad because it is synced with his phone's text messages... of which, I have now silenced. His golf buddies have a group chat and once they start harassing each other it's a whole day of iPad dinging.

Back to my point, as I just became present in this moment of time, a wave of appreciation just swept over my heart and the words "Dang girl, you got it pretty darn good." It's a beautiful thing when your conscious can agree with your subconscious.

Who's to say, even if I did revamp my whole life, that I would even do the things on my wish list. I truly believe my life is designed by the series of decisions I made for myself. Maybe I need to just trust that I am exactly where I should be and when I need to change something it will come organically and I will shape that as well. Thoughts anyone?