The Tortoise and The Hare

 The Tortoise and The Hare

When my husband's health began deteriorating last summer, I began preparing for having to support our daughter on my own. One of my biggest beliefs is to always hope for the best while preparing for the worst; That way you're equipped to handle both. 

I had two options for my family's future

1.) Get a corporate-based retail job that would barely make ends meet, and risk being unable to keep this roof over Angel's head 'if' the worst did happen.

Or

2.) Make something out of nothing and build a stable foundation that will greatly support us financially in the long run.

It wasn't an easy decision to make. 

Job stability, and pay regularity are excellent factors of a corporate-based job. But the unappreciative managerial chain of command that treats their employees like disposable diapers is not something I'm capable of dealing with long term.

The best days of my employment history are when I owned my cleaning business. I'm the best boss I've ever had! I felt so proud of myself when I was a sole proprietor. My clients became like family over the years, and in my younger years, the amount of money I was making was worth the back-breaking labor. 

I'm familiar with the tremendous amount of hard work and dedication that it takes to reconstruct a business entirely from scratch; It's an accomplishment that I'll forever cherish. I wasn't sure if I was going to be strong enough to teach myself a completely new career, turn it into a profitable establishment, nurse my husband's rapidly failing health, work my full-time unpaid job as a Homemaker while keeping my daughter strong because her biological father had dropped out of her life.

So who won the race? The slow tortoise (building a business), or fast-paced hare (corporate employment)?

Looking back over this past year; The journey of becoming a freelance writer and juggling an elephant riding a miniature bicycle while balancing a saucer and teacup on the tip of its trunk (being strong for my daughter and husband) was much harder than I had anticipated. 

The financial strain of inflation riddled me with guilt from not earning an income. How do you justify a vision of success to a family on the brink of losing everything? Yeah, that's fucking stress!

My job interview went very well today! I felt so proud to represent myself as the professional writer that I've worked so hard to become. The weight has been lifted, and all of the doubt, anger, and fears are gone. The insurmountable task that I faced a year ago has been seen to fruition. 

The feeling of satisfaction and contentment comes off as foreign after being stressed for so long.  You can't place a monetary value on the admiration and gratification of my accomplishments, but you can't say I didn't earn anything.