saturday night

It’s 8 pm on Saturday night and I’m wondering if it’s too early to go to bed.

There are a few things that I have to tell my dear readers (both of you):

I could be at a fabulous party. I was invited to one. I really wanted to go. There will be interesting people there that I want to know better. But I taught yoga for six solid hours today. I am exhausted. I got into the snuggie that I won at the real estate office party and looked for movies to download. I ended up starting a documentary about girls hospitalized for anorexia. I turned it off and took the dog out.

My mother insists that I tell everyone that my business is not failing. It’s true. My business is not failing. It’s doing well by most traditional measures of new businesses. It’s just not doing well by my standards, which include providing me with a decent paycheck each month and paying off some of the debt from the start up. In time, I’m sure it will.

Everyone who is a small business owner should read this: http://boss.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/10/the-dusenberry-diary-living-the-dream-or-just-living/?emc=eta1 Everyone who romanticizes entrepreneurship and thinks that being a small business owner is wonderful and liberating should also read it.

Here are what I see as the pre-requisites of owning a small business:

An acute case of workaholism.
Willingness to learn to live with being disliked.
Ability to change light bulbs promptly, submit paperwork, negotiate leases, build bookcases, paint walls, take out the trash, make copies, hire people, fire people, make wrong decisions, fuck up, apologize, demand what you need, live with anger, be disappointed, stomach extreme ups and downs, live with financial insecurity and high levels of debt. (Or be loaded, but I don’t know what that’s like.)

Do I sound bitter? I’m just tired. I don’t want to whine, because I wouldn’t trade the life I have for the life I was living before opening my business for anything! I love square one. I love my customers! I love my teachers and my work trade receptionists, and I love my job. I love that I created it, and I love the work that I do.

I work for myself because I’m a control freak. I love to drive, and I hate being driven. I like to multitask and I need for my brain to be engaged in new, changing things. I thrive, in many ways, on chaos. But, at the end of the day, sometimes I’m just tired, so I don’t make the party. Hopefully they’ll invite me again.