Learning to Do it Alone

Deliveries.

Billings.

Photographing work.

Fixing the dryer.

Cutting out the wood.

Repairing the weed eater.

Just a few of the things i did this week.

I do not cringe at the thought of hard work.

I do not believe in "gender specific jobs" around the house.

I do not shy away from power tools.

For the past several years; however -

my husband managed many of those tasks.

Because i have an 8-5 day job -

he managed the business end of the art business.

He also handled the behind the scenes part of each piece -

he cut and prepped and sealed and delivered.

But he is no longer here to do those things.

He has chose to leave and with him leaving -

he also took with him the support for my business that I relied on.

I have not had to regularly do some of the tasks that i need to do now.

I have found myself having to keep many more balls in the air than usual.

This has brought a great sense of accomplishment.

It has also brought up new emotions . . .

fear, frustration, anger, hurt, betrayal and exhaustiion.

Recently -

I had an order that was due to a local store.

I had to do the art work as usual.

But I also had to negotiate getting the wood cut and prepped, sealing the finished art, creating the invoice, completing the delivery . . .

It required reblancing my time.

It required asking for help from family members (who didn't disappoint, by the way).

I had never made a delivery to this place before.

I felt even more emotions - panic being one of them.

Where do I go? Who do I talk to?

It required a new level of expectation and a new normal.

And although I felt all of those emotions . . .many of which I didn't like feeling -

it also brought up an emotion I didn't expect - PRIDE.

I did it!

With the help of awesome family members - i did it.

And it confirmed to me - I can do it.