Some days, 24 hours seems like a ridiculous amount of time, moving at a snail’s pace. Other days, it’s gone in a blink, and Monday turns into Friday, and I wonder where the weeks.months.years have gone. It feels perpetually busy, but with not a whole lot yet to show for it. I’m not entirely sure what would make me feel justified in my current spending of time, but perhaps a novel, or an 8ft marble sculpture might suffice. However, all I have is this business I’m trying to start up, and a new apartment.
I say that so nonchalantly. As if I haven’t been dreaming it forever. I think part of me is scared that if I dwell on it too much, love it too hard, it will vanish. Old superstitious behaviors are hard to break. But for this moment I will admit how much I adore my new life. How I feel changed by this West End neighbourhood, have become smitten with a cat who enjoys a spirited game of hide and seek as much as I do. Life is wonderful right now. Which makes it difficult to understand why I’m still struggling a bit with it.
It’s all rooted in fear, I guess. It’s my fears of losing things that keeps me from making the huge advancements in my own life that I wish I could be. But to finally come to terms with understanding that it is only me who mans the controls, me holding the reigns, me steering the oars (insert 9000 other vague transportation related metaphors here). It’s scary, because when things go wrong, I have no one to blame but myself. And it’s terrifying.
I’m trying to juggle my personal life while starting this new business life, but they both live in the same walls, under the same roof, and it becomes blurry. So I spend a lot of time feeling like I should be always working on Fable, even though I’m somewhat baffled as to what step to take now. It should go without saying that starting up a business is challenging, but I think the hardest part about it is the lack of clear instruction. There are days I miss the task-lists of 9-5 jobs, and knowing exactly what it was that had to be accomplished, having a method for completion, and knowing at the end of the day that it was done. Instead, there is a perpetual feeling of ‘I should be doing…’ that I can’t quite shake. Ever.
At any rate, I’m relishing the new space. I wander from room to room, amused at the lack of furniture to fill it; regularly run down the hallway and slide ‘Risky Business’ style into the living room, the cat hot on my heels. With time, I know life will expand to fill in the gaps… both in the apartment, and my confidence. The light helps. It is bright even on the dreariest Vancouver days, and this in of itself is huge. I feel inspired by it, even in the midst of trying to understand my new roll as grownup-life-figure-outer. In the meantime I’m happy I have my sidekick Stewart, who immediately flopped down in the center of my place, in the center of my heart.
We’re figuring it out. Guess that’s all that any of us can really do, as long as we’re growing in the process. And to prove a point about my own growth? The new kitchen has inspired me to start cooking… who’d have thunk it?
(Ok, so it’s just pizza and salad – but this is a HUGE step up from cereal.)