everything on my plate

A slice of guilt.  A dash of fear.  Complemented by a healthy serving of optimism.

While waiting at the check-out at the drug store this afternoon, the latest issue of Toronto Life magazine caught my eye.  It’s their annual issue devoted entirely to weddings.  I picked it up, flipped through the pages and found a very brief (nevertheless, blissfully becoming) blurb about me and my recently euthanized business, out-of-the-box ideas.  I fought back the tears.

I’ve succeeded at fighting back the tears for a long time now.  There’s really no need to cry over failure.  Was it even failure?  Clearly, it couldn’t have been failure if the business (no longer in existence) is still being recommended by this city’s chic magazine, no?

Toronto Life Wedding Guide 2011, cover and page 107. "...one part Anna Wintour" just made my year! Maybe even my lifetime.

This made me re-evaluate the reasons why I threw in the towel and why, as of three weeks ago, I began full-time employment in a civil engineering office (a phenomenon I hadn’t experienced since 2006).  Perhaps it will take much longer than three weeks to mourn the past four and a half years I toiled as a business owner.  But I am moving on.

So, why did I throw away a sky-high limit, a flexible schedule, a pajama dress code, and a potential for greatness in my life?  Because:

-Sometimes, the sky is not the limit.  The limit is gravity.  No matter how high I reached, I was pulled down — grounded — by the things that are more seemingly real than what I was reaching for.  Sadly, those real things are mostly monetary.  Things like rent, a business loan, material and advertising expenses, a fluctuating revenue, and a seasonal market.

-Sometimes, a flexible schedule meant a three-hour lunch with a good friend followed by three consecutive days of three hours of sleep a night (or make that three consecutive weeks).  It meant working until three in the morning on many nights and being reduced to mental and emotional vacancy for long periods.

-Sometimes, pajamas were mandatory all day because there wasn’t even time to eat a proper meal, take a shower, let alone get out of sleeping clothes.  There were days it was work the microsecond I got out of bed.

I was afraid that leaving my business behind meant throwing away all potential for greatness in my life.  But it was no reason to fear.  Because I will never be rid of my own potential, no matter the obstacle.  I never threw away, will never throw away, the promise of being the best version of me I can be.  It’s a promise I make to myself daily.

Since I wrote my recent post about all the goings-on in my life, things changed dramatically in a matter of weeks and I am now getting over the shock of returning to the work force.  Yes, the best decision, among several choices I’ve been dealt, is full-time employment doing utility coordination at a civil engineering firm.  I do still work with children on weekends because, well, I need to work with children to feel sane and inspired and whole.

My reinstatement into daily cubicle life has enlightened me with a newfound reality.  The reality is: what I do from 9-5 does not dictate my capacity to be everything I can be after 5.   What you see right here, on this blog, is everything that makes me happy.  A hundred times more happy than making wedding invitations.  Thank you so much for being here to validate that purpose, for always reading and following along, despite life’s many changes.  There is more, so much more, in this life to create!  ♥