Heading back home after three nights away with the kiddos.
Back to overthinking, but needed healing.
I just finished a book for book club called The Light of the World. I guess it still made me a bit sad. Today is harder day for me to process where we are in life. I am so so so tired of this business. I am angry and resentful today of how demanding it has been. It has been this child that has demanded all from us and given, it seems to me, very little in return.
I have delayed many other things in life to let this thing stay alive. It distracts me and often takes over my weeks, other plans I try and make. Always some new catastrophe. Always some new thing that needs a meeting in the middle of time I would like to write or at least think and plan for the future. I do not know how to both be grateful but also to be realistic about how hard this has been. It seems unbelievable to me that it has taken this long to get to this point. 20 years, now 21 years of hard labor and toil.
I would say the highlights for Jay would be the international pharmaceutical company project and our large, $100K clients who are deeply satisfied. I know he feels good about those. He feels good that we have a paycheck in a city that is hard to make a living. We have had to use his Mom’s money to survive and especially to do anything like this weekend getaway we’re doing now. We are hand to mouth mostly, nothing really going to savings. We eat out every day in some form or another, long ago giving up eating a lot at home.
I wonder at what my life has become. Some of it has been very intentional, like this trip. I planned it, made it happen. I want time with my babies. I feel best when we’re together, the four of us and whoever the friends are that come along.
That's how I feel at least, but I know KT needs her Bee along now. I get it; I wish we hadn't hurt her along the way so much with all our issues.
We had an extended family get together last Saturday when they were home. I enjoyed having people over and cooking. It has come at a high cost. I believe it has given them a better sense of themselves to have grown up near family, but it has been hard for Jay and I. Now, how do we make this business work and still make a living in a harsh town.
This is not something I have every particularly believed in, this business. That is hard. We have had way too much hardness in our life, our marriage.
This is my struggle today (and many days).
So now with all of that down on ‘paper,’ I need to get serious about being mindful in the next few moments, connecting to my real self and not my ego and small self, to see what is real and possible, not my fears and insecurities. See this place we are in, remember a weekend of my family playing games together, my wonderful dog at my side, friends in town, security, a home.
Believe in the future, that I can grow and make things better and different, just like the place this weekend.
We did this and we can keep doing it.
This is what I was given and what I’ve chosen up until now. I am not someone that came from a global family. Our family was largely hard, white blue collar workers. My mom and dad were the first to go to college in their families. My mom explored cooking from different cultures without much support from friends or her husband. She did Chinese, English, French and Norwegian. One of my favorite cooking memories is making the rosettes. She was incredible, when I think now of what she dealt with in my father. She tried and wanted to expand and learn. And now, she has chosen fanaticism and that seems to be gone.
My aunt has the most cosmopolitan life of us all, with her amazing housemates from all the various countries. I enjoy hearing about them and meeting them and she is proud to introduce me.
So somehow, I have to resolve all of this. The past, which I cannot change, my ancestery as well as the choices I’ve made, my present, with our business, marriage, children, house, friends, city, and then what I want for the future. What am I willing to change and what will just need to stay the same or I’d want to stay the same? What is hurting inside me that needs to be free and to change?
People keep asking, when are you going to start writing again? What about the art? And then people just stop asking because it never happens.
I am now trying to make it happen, but it’s slow. I’ve had a long recovery from the breakdown last summer. But now I am running, starting to cook again, trying to be in love with my husband again.
The free-fall ended; now it's time for the hard, slow work of rebuilding something new. It's easy so easy to criticize, to stand back and see what isn't working or perfect. I've lived on both sides of that equation. I know what doesn't work for me about our business and that career pathway, but I can see beauty in it for others not to mention our livelihood.
So no, not just pointing fingers at what's been hard; do something different. Something I've been trying to get to and haven't known how.
On we go.