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Tuesday, March 25, 2008

It's (kinda) official.

I've been holding back.

Things have been going well for me this year ('08 is great) and I'm scared that at any moment, everything will fall through and I'll be left with my heart, hopes and dreams in my hand, standing alone, in the rain, on a corner watching the last bus to the good life drive away without me.  

Actually, I've had a few undesirable things happen so far, but I turned them into lemonade.  I know I have the strength and resources to pull through tough times, but lately I've found myself wondering what would happen if I went blind.  What if something catastrophic happened that shook my will to go on?  Would I be able to overcome something like that?  I'm sure everyone thinks they've had a difficult life, and I'm no different.  I feel I've had to learn a lot of hard lessons early and that I'm ready for a period of smooth sailing.  Maybe not even so much in the outside world, I don't necessarily need good luck (not that I'd kick it out of bed for eating crackers) but I want a moment to breathe without the constant inner turmoil that arises from questioning myself, my motivations, my life, what I believe in, etc. 

Over the last year and a half, I was going through a pretty rough patch.  Throughout my life, that seems to be my general pattern.  Something brews for a while, I go inside, into the dark, struggle with my inner demons and then come out on the other side transformed.  I can't remember ever having such a long dark period, however.  I shared a lot of good times with good friends, but I was really struggling with feeling depressed and lonely and as if that's not hard enough, feeling embarrassed about it like it was a testament to my inevitable deterioration.  I turned 30, was drinking too much and making poor decisions that only perpetuated my shame and loneliness.  I knew that something had to happen and whatever it was had to come from inside of me, I just had no idea how to go in and get it.  Sometime after that came my epiphany.

Part of the reason for holding back is also related to my continued commitment to stay in the moment so as not to obsess over the outcome of any situation since I can neither control nor predict such things.  For example, my relationship with Peter.  So many things occur every day that I wish I could share with him or something will remind me of a joke we shared, but since he's in the wilderness with no phone/email quite often, the lack of immediate/frequent response starts to get to me and I wonder if it was all in my imagination, are time and distance eroding his feelings for me?  I share the same time and distance, but when I get lonely, no one else's company would satisfy my urge to be with him.  I don't claim him as my boyfriend, but would feel untrue if I were dating others not necessarily to him, but to my feelings.  I have not asked him to deny himself these options, but I can only hope he would feel the same.  So, I've sort of created my own little conundrum.  My solution:  cross my fingers and plan the next visit. 

I'm not good at making plans either.  I can barely commit to what time to meet for lunch three days from now because I might be in the mood to do something else.  So for me to plan a career just seems ridiculous.  Over the years I've tried several different jobs after graduating from college, all while still bartending.  Each of them has bored me within a year.  I'm scared to invest so much time, energy and money into another degree only to be met with the same boredom.  So, five years after my introduction to handmade soap, for soapmaking to still ignite the same passion, if not more so, thrills me to say the least. 

I haven't talked much about this because I didn't want to count my proverbial eggs before they hatch...  but that distributor I spoke about briefly several blogs ago wants to carry my entire line of soaps.  Ahhhhhhhh!!!  They even sent my soap off to a lab to make sure it was up to their green standards on top of trying it for themselves, so they know I have a good product.  Their website should be up and running within the next week or two and the way I understand it, from there they will gauge interest in my product and shortly thereafter, place their order(s).  They also have other plans in the works which could mean bigger orders a few months from now.  I think this is definitely cause to step up production.  So, a few hours ago I went to Home Depot and got some MDF and 1x4 wood to make a mold that will accommodate 3-4 times the size of my current batch.  I started daydreaming about warehouse/loft space, exposed brick, stainless steel kitchen carts, soap curing in racks along the walls, saponifying to my Mute Math cd as the sun shines through the windows into my soap palace... (note to self: stay in the moment).   A few years ago, I pasted my face onto a picture of Kathleen Lewis from an article  in Organic Style, a magazine which no longer exists.  It was with scissors and glue, not exactly photoshop quality:



Man, that would be cool.

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