No One Ever Said It Would Be Easy

There's a part of me that thinks...no wait...knows that if I had any concept what was ahead of me in the "let's start our own business" idea, I would have probably run off screaming and hidden under a rock somewhere.

It's almost June and in the past 5 months (holy cow, five months!) there have been ups and downs, struggles, fear, frustration, elation, laughter and tears just name a few things. Wait--that might have just been the first week!

The bad news is, none of us are even close to making the money we were making at our old jobs. The good news is, that in a less than perfect economy, business is building, we have kept our team in tact, we are having fun, learning a lot and experiencing new challenges. We've had a lot of successful small jobs come in and we might have even just scored our first "big" client.

It's an exciting process and with each week and with each additional invoice that goes out this whole thing is starting to feel more and more real.

However, the stress of trying to do this is unbelievable. I find myself grinding my teeth from the stress to the point where my jaw hurts. The lack of money is tough (especially when we had a water pipe burst in our house and are having to do repairs and remodeling--some above and beyond what insurance is covering). I am still trying to learn to play bass, pay our bills, keep us on budget, exercise, grocery shop and some days, it just feels like too much. And yet, somehow, it all feels like it is worth the fight--like somehow, I'll be stronger from all of it and come out on the other side a better person.

So, I am just flying by the seat of my pants, praying a lot and hoping that one day I can look back and say how happy I am that I lost my job because it gave us the opportunity to do something amazing with our lives that we never would have had the chance to do any other way.

I think that sometimes we forget (or at least I do) that when you hear about people achieving something great, you don't always identify with the struggles they went through to get there, but I think the great struggle is always "chapter one" in any great success story.

I'm just thrilled that whether we succeed or fail--at least we had the guts to start writing the first page.

Now, if I could just get my jaw to stop aching...