Things moved along very well for a while and I was ignorant of the fact that everything was about to change. There is a song called “Slow Fad” and one of the lines says “ It’s a slow fade when you give yourself away…” Daily I was giving myself over to the demands of this petulant child called “Almost Home”. Even the name meant it was just one step away from heaven. But it was far from heaven before long.
In June of 2008 after just five and a half short months things began to change. They were changing all along but I didn’t see it. The economy was showing signs of weakening and there were not as many customers as there once had been. Those that did still shop didn’t buy much and the original owner was getting to move her restaurant in the back out to a new location. I didn’t realize how much I had come to depend on the other people in the store for little things like opening on time and helping me run the register and just general accounting and support.
I stopped being a labor of love and became a bad dream. It wasn't perfect anymore. People did shop and the store was really cute just as I knew it would be but not enough people shopped and gas prices started going up in the state and fewer people shopped and then the economy began to show signs of real trouble and still I soldiered on despite all of these things. I would wake up like a zombie, get dressed and not to see my family until after the children had gone to sleep. I began to miss my life befre the store but I was so deep in the valley that I couldn’t even see the sunshine over the top anymore. So slowly the cutest store ever became the albatross around my neck. There was water everywhere but certainly not enough to drink. Stores around me were having trouble too and we all commiserated together but believed in our plans and just knew it would come back. I knew God had placed me here for a reason but I believed I had not achieved it yet and I certainly was not going to give up now. I dug in my heels.
It did not come back.
I was determined to save my perfect endeavor. After all it was my dream; and dreams cannot NOT come true. If you just work hard enough and long enough it WILL happen. It will work. I began working more and being home less. The ideas I had of personal perfection began to slide all into my store. Gone were the ideas that my children and husband needed me as much as they do. I became so focused on the store and making it work that I let everything else slide. My friendships, my family, my housework all lived somewhere in the distant background.
I simply needed to be at the store more. We needed to be open every day until 9 at night. 50 Hours wasn’t going to be enough I needed to work 70 maybe 90 hours; I needed to be smarter about all my business endeavors. Somewhere I had missed something and that one thing was the key to making it work. I had to be better, perkier more charming wittier and people would come shop with me and at my store. The store was becoming me. I was becoming the store and as it failed, I was becoming a failure. The entire store was moving in and taking the place of everything in my life and all because I couldn't separate myself from the physical store. I certainly couldn’t hire anyone because I didn’t have enough money to even keep the lights on. I would have to be enough for everyone. And I tumbled deeper and deeper into the valley until I was on my knees.
More to come...
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