{… I apologize in advance for this post. It’s kind of just a bit of a pity party, but it’s one of the benefits of owning your own little piece of the Internet.}
Sometimes things are weird. Life has this funny way of knocking you down and building you right back up again. Honestly, sometimes it happens so quickly that I’ve barely had time to register that I was down before things have balanced out.
Unfortunately, that isn’t how things seem to be going right now, and I’m going to take a moment away from trying to get the “perfectly curated life” (which, let’s be honest, isn’t an attainable thing for anyone – let alone myself) and be completely honest.
I was so thrilled and proud of myself when my company finally grew enough to become my sole source of income. I’ve never felt more accomplished, or more grown-up, than being able to tell people that I owned my own company. And while I do still, technically, own my own company it’s no longer enough to sustain my life full-time. I lost a client (due to unforeseen circumstances on their end), and another potentially huge deal kinda of went kaput.
While I had been managing my clients full-time I had decided (prior to the above two mentioned debacles) to begin looking for a part-time job to help boost my income, since Chuck and I are in the beginning stages of looking for a house. And when everything came crashing down, I had already had an interview at a great company and literally two hours after having a huge pity party I got a phone call that I had gotten the job.
Which brings me to today (well, yesterday – by the time you’ll be reading this) – my first day of work at my new part-time position. As I said, it’s a great (a really, really great) company, and the hours are awesome (M-F, 10am-2pm – can’t get better than that!). But there’s just something… off. Not with the job, but with me. I feel like I’ve failed, and that I let myself down.
Prior to going out on my own I was proud of myself for working a full-time job while building my company. And when I got let go from my job I was devastated… until I realized that all of my hard work had paid off and I could be my own boss. But now … I feel like I’m going backwards. I’ve had to relinquish the new found control I’d gotten over my professional life, and the pride that came with knowing I built it all myself, and was continuing to manage it all myself.