SeeingRred
My dear sister NIR called last night and told me to take a seat. I almost didn’t pick up the phone. “We have a job staging a newly renovated 1.25 million dollar house, if we want it! And, a couple of other possible jobs are lined up,” she blurted out. And just like that, I was tossed back into the working world, into entrepreneurship, into the land of doing, and back into real life. I couldn’t believe my ears. She was soooo excited, too, that I couldn’t help get caught up in the moment. Immediately, we started bouncing off ideas, dreaming of the possibilities and revelling in the sheer luck of it.
I have never thought myself to be lucky. The only thing I have EVER won was a book at an Earth Day conference I attended during my teacher’s college years, a beautiful coffee table conversation piece, but a BOOK nonetheless about the environment. And, the only reason I won it was because, of all the hundreds of people that attended, my birthday was the closest one to Earth Day. Admittedly, in that moment, when they pointed to me up in the stands and the stage lights found me, and the back-patting audience waved me through the theatre aisles down to the lit-up stage, and I heard the roaring of the crowds, I felt just like one of those lucky bastards on the Price Is Right!
I heard Oprah say once that she didn’t believe in luck. She explained that “luck is when opportunity comes knocking and you are ready for it. In the meantime, you are preparing yourself and growing yourself, waiting for that moment and when it comes, you seize it.” (If I haven’t mentioned it yet, I LOVE Oprah! It was on my bucket list to meet her and be on her show. Needless to say, when she announced that she was packing up the Oprah show and recording her final episodes, I was devastated!) I know my beloved is right.
This new career path is, without a doubt, a thrilling dream-come-true venture for me. Designing and transforming spaces is fun! It keeps me up at night, in a good way. Exhausted after a long day’s work at home, but still researching/sketching/Pinning into the wee hours of the morning. It’s been less than a day, and although we have barely spoken, NIR and I have registered for a Staging and Feng Shui event happening next week, lined up a couple of meetings with potential clients, researched programs and apps for 3D Design and have a strong contender for our business name (yet to be shared even with her!).
But, as of the last few hours, after baking eight batches of my Yummiest Healthiest Oatmeal Cookies on tired and swollen feet, yelling from the bowels of the kitchen in an attempt to direct my children through all of our night-time routines, refereeing random sibling battles, and finally herding them late to bed with some pretty strong words, I feel guilty and truly less than. I cannot even perform my current responsibilities right. This is my worry. To top it all off, I am less than two weeks away from plunging head-first into my emotionally loaded and difficult 2nd round of my Weight battle: “All or Nothing,” organizing for the upcoming month-long working vacation in Trinidad to resurrect the family estate (& all that that entails :{ ), and still praying that somehow I will be able to get my blog up and running the way I want (don’t know how to even go about this and I know this is something I NEED).
So, is it possible that I can add this business to my already overwhelming plan and be successful at it? Will Life open up for me, so that there is enough time in the day to do it all? This is a big deal. It’s not only me or my kids’ or my family’s welfare at stake (at which I already feel as though I fall short). I will have the added pressure of external forces, interacting daily and relying on my sister (not an easy feat for loners and recluses), clients to please, and demanding timelines to meet. I have been out of the Teaching work force for 10 years. It is scary going from a successful career outside of the home to an existence defined by four walls and three kids, losing oneself, finding it, then losing it again. That’s where I’m at. Up until yesterday, I had a plan… at least a sketch of one. I knew that this coming September all of my three boys would be in school. I was readying myself for action. I was preparing and planning and taking steps. But, just like that, my 4-month forecast has been cut down to 2 weeks. The real question in my head is, “How much can I really handle?”
Written April 20, 2017
