Time flies, but in a good way

Christmas of 2007, my mom came to visit me at my house in Atlanta, instead of me going to see her at her house in Oxford, Mississippi. I was freelancing at the time, and not exactly the happiest with where my career had taken me. I’d been semi-content at the ad agency I’d worked for, but once again, not completely happy. Freelancing was paying the bills, but Mom knew that I wanted a job I loved, not one that just kept my mortgage paid. In that, she and I are a lot alike.

We went out to eat one night, and while we were chatting and waiting for our food to arrive, she brought up my dissatisfaction with my job. “I hate seeing you in something that you just don’t enjoy, and, well, I need to ask you something. Just hear me out first, then give me your impressions.” As it turns out, her store that she had opened for almost a year at that point was doing well. Well enough that her business partner, a friend from high school, had said “I want one in my town now. We need a good manager for this one since it would be 3 hours away from you and you can’t watch over it. Think of someone.” So Mom asked me, what did I think about becoming the manager of the second store?

For the next 5 seconds, this is what went through my head: it would be in a town I had visited (my mom’s mom lived there til she passed earlier that month) but never lived in. I wouldn’t know anyone other that some relatives I hadn’t really ever talked to often and weren’t particularly close to. Even Mom’s business partner I’d only met a handful of times, but I’d liked her each of those meetings. I had a boyfriend who was moving from Michigan to Atlanta in February to be with me, and we’d have to sell a house in a starting-to-crumble housing market. Then there was the actual packing of a house, finding a new place to live, moving two states, and did I really want to quit my career as a production artist/graphic designer?

“How soon does she want me? I can leave in two weeks.”

Yep, I was burnt out on design work and ad agencies. I was burned out on Atlanta and the horrible commutes. I was burned out on just about everything my life had at the time, with the exception of my cats, my friends, my boyfriend, and my family. The only thing keeping my sanity together at the time was World of Warcraft, where I could chat with Jared and other friends in-game, and dreaming of what would happen if I won the lottery. Not practical to getting into a happy place career-wise, but the economy was starting to tank, and advertising is one of the first things to go when companies are trying to stay afloat. That meant that ad companies weren’t hiring and even the freelance work was starting to get dicey.

After Mom realized I was serious about wanting to accept the job, we got started talking about what all it would entail and what I’d have to do to get ready. I told her I was 90% sure I wanted to take the job, but wanted to talk to Jared before I said “yes”. He and I talked later, and I told him about the offer. “But I know you’re moving down here to move in with me, and I hate to move right after you get here to yet another strange town and this one’s smaller than Atlanta.” “First, I’m moving to be with you, not the city of Atlanta. Second, I live in a small town now. I like small towns. This works for me.” So I called Mom and said dependent on the salary being something that I could live with, I’d do it.

The next few months were hectic: Jared was in a wreck where his truck got totaled and he got not badly hurt, but enough he had to delay his move down til the doctor said he was okay. There were trips to Meridian from Atlanta to talk to Mom’s business partner and scout locations for the store. Salaries and budgets were agreed upon. Packing started. The freelance job I’d been on for 6 months at that point was notified of my impending departure, right about the point they started cutting back on their freelance hours. The house was cleaned up, repaired, improved, and put onto the market with an amazing agent who worked miracles. Finally, at the end of May, after locating an apartment a couple of blocks from the soon-to-be new store, I came home from the freelance job and asked Jared how he felt about moving in a week instead of 3, since we now had a buyer for the house. He was fine with it, so the really frantic packing started, complete with freaked out cats. We were loading the moving van while the buyers for the house were there with the inspector. Two days later, we were unloading a moving van in the new town.

In 5 months, I’d changed careers, said goodbye to a town I’d had some great times in, said goodbye to friends, and dove into a new life. I’d gone to school for a career that I was now not going to use for anyone other than myself and my mom, and that infrequently. I spent the next two months frantically getting the last details done on the store, ordering merchandise, hiring staff, re-learning how to work in a retail store (I’d put myself through college working specialty retail, aka gift shops, so it was perfect training), and trying to learn the ins and outs of this new town. Finally, on July 28th, 2008, just a little over  7 months from when Mom asked me to listen to her idea, we opened the doors to the store. Later that week, the public school teachers found us and we were off and running. August 13, 2008 we had our Grand Opening celebration, and I spent most of the day overwhelmed by the support we were getting from the community.

It’s now been just over a year since we quietly snuck open, and officially a year since our Grand Opening. Everyone laughs that I remember the dates so well. May 31st, we moved into the apartment. June 7th, we met with the art vendor to plan out the purchases from him. July 25th, we got our last approvals to open. July 28th, we opened and haven’t looked back since. I look back through the notebook I was scribbling hurried notes in (“call fire dept inspection”, “pw for CD?”, “contact radio station/newspaper”, “::completely illegible scribble, underlined 3 times::”) and it seems a lifetime ago, not a year.

So, did things turn out the way I wanted them to? Overall I’d have to say yes. We have a store that everyone who comes in is in love with. We’ve made the artist community and teachers very happy. I’ve gotten to know some wonderful people. And I’m a lot more content with my life than I was in Atlanta. The stress is still around at times, but it’s good stress. It’s the stress of knowing you’re going to have at least 100, but probably more like 200 teachers coming through the store in the next week and a half getting ready for the city schools to go into session, and you just got finished restocking after the county schools came through. We have slow days, and I get stressed by them, but then the fast and frantic days happen and I get stressed by them. More times than not, these days I’m laughing and smiling. Panic attacks are few and far between instead of a near-daily occurrence. And I’d bet my blood pressure’s gone down too.

So time flies. Life happens. People change. And sometimes, you have to walk away from everything you’re doing to find out what really makes you happy. Thanks Mom. Thanks Jared. And thanks to all the friends that supported this and listened to me fret that I might screw up. You guys rock.