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My Profile
Fairytales for a Practical Princess - 2008-11-30
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9:20 a.m. - 2008-09-20
I didn't think I'd be writing this for another 6 weeks or so, but fiscal realities being what they are and that market season is rapidly coming to a close as winter bears down on us GBW must cut her coat to fit the cloth available. That cloth means a change of venue ASAP. Fridays on the village green are over. GBW will be toting her wares across the river to another market on Saturdays now. A market with a much higher profit potential and a much shorter selling day. If having fewer hours to hawk one's wares sounds counterintuitive to the idea of making more money, I assure you it is not. The venue GBW will be trying is in a VERY high end town full of galleries and antique stores and bistros where the patrons think nothing of shelling out fifty bucks for scones and tea for two. Friends also on the farmer's market circuit have assured her they make pots of dough in this place. Plus GBW will have the novelty advantage coming in late as she is. The first couple weeks should be good just from the "Oooo! I have to try this!" factor alone. At least this is the thinking (and fervent hope) since the Friday market has totally tanked since Labor Day. It'd be great if the new venue could be added to the current roster instead of being a one-or-the-other situation, but facts is facts. Fact is there just isn't enough of anything to go around. Not cheese. Not time. And certainly not enough of GBW to spread that thin. Especially since the woman is worn to a shadow already. Even with my help (faboo chevre roller that I am) prepping, packing, hauling, setting up and breaking down three days in a row is impossible. To say nothing of the time spent actually foisting her wonderful products on the buying public. Thus my career as a goat cheese shark has come to an abrupt end. I'll still go to the farm on Thursdays to roll and brine and risk life and limb making that volcanic fudge. It's the least I can do. I got into this thing to help my friend, of course, but it's also something I'm doing for me. A commitment to pay it forward for all the help I got when my own marriage hit the skids. I wouldn't have gotten through that wretched time without the love and support that came pouring in from everywhere. Money, hugs, gifts, notes of encouragement, all that belief and friendship enabled me to crawl out of that corner I'd retreated to whimpering and utterly terrified over the prospect of being a middle-aged single mom. A single mom with a shattered self-esteem, a pitiful out of date resume and not a fucking clue as to where to begin. All I'd done since ever was to put everything I had in keeping my shambles of a relationship together and trying to cope with a child who thwarted everything I did. A kid who rarely slept, who didn't talk, and whose amok behavior kept me on the shaking ragged edge of complete physical, mental and emotional exhaustion since the day he'd been born. It's taken almost 3 years and I flubbed it A LOT, but that shattered wreck is reasonably whole, sort of solvent, and a fierce advocate for her kid against a system rigged to keep parents humiliated and scared and to keep the money and services out of reach. I've lost enough blub to be back in my bigger skinny jeans and against all odds and expectation I am loved by a worthy man. A man who was a bit of a wreck himself when we found each other, but who has given me the best gift I could have ever imagined. Mick's outlook and attitude has done a complete turnaround over this past year. He says he feels happy and whole nowadays as he never had before, something he gives me all the credit for. Of course I am happy my guy is feeling so enabled and content, a mate who'd want it otherwise is no mate at all. (hello sick fuck ex-husband who was only pleased when I was in knots and tears) But the true gift of Mick's happiness is seeing for myself I was not wrong. That idea of what life should be I'd held onto all those years with Mike, the vision of being kind and at peace I'd first built for myself in my mother's hell, well it turns out I wasn't crazy to hang onto it. The way I thought it should be IS the way it should be. That hope I'd clung to all those long sad years has been validated. My ideas about how to live a good life were spot on. We DO have a good life. It wasn't stupid to believe in kindness. To be certain that if allowed the chance I could make someone happy, my love was a good thing, my insistence our home be a haven…wow. I've gotten to see I wasn't wrong about ANY of it. Especially the bit about how I am a good thing. I am NOT the poison, I am NOT the albatross, I am NOT the life ruiner. Far, far from it. With Mick I was given the opportunity to be wholly who I am and put my theories about kindness and choosing happiness to the test. The pay-off has been spectacular. Would I like fame and fortune and all that jazz? Of course, it's been proved I'm not a total fool. But I've been granted the chance to see my most burning desire, my lifelong wish come true. So even if I stay poor and obscure forever I'll be fine. I got the one thing I wanted more than anything, the one thing I believed was always going to be beyond my grasp so would have to make do with other good stuff. Mick has shown me my love is the powerful life-affirming thing I'd always hoped it was.
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