Yesterday was a frustration day.
Everett cried for me when I left for work, and I had a souring experience once I got there. I just wanted to be home, and it made me angry that I couldn't be.
Lately I've been thinking the solution to my problem, the problem of not having enough time, is to work my butt off to make my shop successful enough that I can let teaching go for the time being. I was willing to work myself into a rut for the next several months if I could make that a reality.
But this week I found a newish shop on Etsy who, it appears, has swooped in and taken my business plan. The wording, the product styling, the pricing, the logo, the fabrics I've spent years curating--basically the brand--there it all was, right down to the collages I made myself in ipiccy. And I felt surprisingly calm about it, almost resigned. I cannot support my family on something that can so easily be stolen. I spent the day after that working with my brand manager on lots of new ideas, working to design a spring line of fabrics that can't be swooped upon, you know, keeping my chin up, but after I sent a friend to this new shop to see what I thought I was seeing, she said, "She's basically stealing from a mom with two jobs."
And then I was like, damn.
When she put it that way, I allowed myself to be upset.
Remember my monthly goals? This month's is to sign an agent for the book I'm writing, and several times I've wanted to just sit down and save that goal "for later." But I know that later never comes.
Last night I stayed up late trying to get everything else done so I'd have time for friends and writing this weekend. I wondered as I was ironing blanket binding if maybe I've got too much crap on my plate on purpose. Or if maybe I'm spinning the wheel too fast, thinking that I have to be a kickass teacher and an amazing, patient mom and a wife who cooks and cleans and the breadwinner and a published author, all before 30.
I look at my dad. He turned 67 last month. Whenever I call him, I feel this sense of calm. He reminds me that there is plenty of time, that there are plenty of readers to read whatever I write whenever I write it, that there are plenty of meals to be cooked or not cooked, but only one baby named Everett and one husband named Mike.
Priorities.
I don't mind telling you that I'm actually screwing up a lot of things. I send customers extra sheets or no sheets at all because I work on orders too late into the night. I let my students have too many free days because I'm working on another deadline. I get frustrated with Everett because he slams doors or throws food to get my attention.
And what's crazy is: I've hired help. I have three people to do the sewing, but now I've started asking myself, "If I sew this myself, how much money can I save our family?" And I hired an assistant to answer my shop emails, but now I've filled that free time with the sewing I should be letting others do. It's my control freak coming out in me. The perfectionist. The kid whose mom used to call her lazy. Why do we feel like we have to do it all? Is that our generation? Constantly starting new projects, frustrated we can never perfect any one thing, dropping some or all of our plates. Feeling overwhelming guilt if we sit down for one hour of television. This fear of mentioning that we're stressed out lest we be taken for bellyachers.
I planned a spring break trip for us in another week. Mike doesn't know about it yet. I'm just going to pack the car and put him and little EE in it. I'm taking a notebook and a pen, and I'm going to write. I'm going to let my assistant answer emails and my seamstresses do the sewing. I'm going to push the reset button.
It's okay to be still. There should be no guilt there. These are things I have to chant at myself.
So now you know where no internet February was born. Craving time. I constantly struggle with finding the right balance. I remember how hard my mom worked and how many dreams she had outside of her roles as mother and teacher, how frustrated she would get because she couldn't figure out how to do it all.
Do you have any dreams that just wait and wait, but they are the ones you want to be living the most? Have you ever let some dreams go, because you didn't have enough time or even crazier to think about--it was the right thing to do?