Spring is the beginning, a season of inception and creation. But then it pulls a fast one, and, OOPS!, it rolled back on itself and left us with a few more weeks of rain and chilly weather.
At first, I was irritated, with the weather, with myself. With the advent of slightly warmer sun-filled days, I had erroneously begun to move some plants outside. I thought because the temps were in the 70s and I had noticed outside plants beginning to sprout, it was safe to move those house sheltered plants outdoors again.
Nope.
The potted jasmine that I bought last summer, then brought inside and nursed patiently through the snowy winter immediately died, the tender green leaves hardening in place and then falling off. And the calla lily my husband thoughtfully brought to me at the end of March? Yep, it also wilted when I left it out overnight, thinking that it would be fine until I could get it in the ground.
And now it's April, and I've been itching to get out in the garden to start getting the beds ready and planted, but the dahlia tubers I stored last fall all rotted, so I have to wait for a few new tubers I ordered during the winter to arrive.
Obviously, I am NOT a green-thumbed gardener. The plants that do well with me are the ones that thrive when left alone, watered consistently but not frequently, and can stand some well-meant but not always helpful attention.
What does all the gardening talk and spring weather have to do with crafting and writing books? Well, I think in the beginning of my journey I thought a writer just magically created a story from the thoughts in their head. It couldn't be that difficult, right? If you have an imagination then you're always making up stories and having conversations in your head. Writing them down shouldn't be difficult.
I also thought that wanting to create and share crafts, maybe even sell them, was a naturally linear process, and I thought going through the steps of setting up a small business would lead to me becoming an entrepreneur. I had an idea to make something, I wanted to sell what i made, so I did all of the legal stuff, and voila!
I now had a business.
But did I?
If the not-quite-yet spring moments of March taught me anything it's this:
Sometimes when you think it's time, it isn't.
Sometimes what you think you are, if you give yourself a little more time to ruminate, becomes something else.
For over a year I've been educating myself on what it means to be a small business owner, to become part of this great community of people that keep bringing the world new and unique things that are made with care. But, I've realized that no amount of study and preparation are going to turn me into something I'm not.
Maybe it's because dislike competitive sports, or because the artsy side of my brain doesn't play well with the analytic side. Maybe it's because I almost always have one foot in reality and the other in my own fabulously fantastical worlds. Whatever the reason, I understand and accept, now, that owning and operating a business doesn't bring me joy, even though I do love being in control of my own time and effort. There is an entrepreneurial spirit that I lack no matter how much I'm willing to learn about it.
I don't like marketing and advertising. I have been an introvert with social anxiety and levels of emotional detachment for too long now to even try to connect through silly, fun, goofy, entertaining, or any other click-baiting style of post. Just thinking of making a 30 second video makes every nerve in my body stand up and start screaming "RUN!"
As a business, if I sell stuff, but never make a profit, then by the definition of what a business is, I've failed. And I've been struggling so much against this perception of failure that any creative spark that starts to form just fizzles out.
It's been exhausting.
Back to the gardening stuff...I read somewhere recently that instead of jumping into the garden in early spring and cleaning up our piles of old leaves and plant parts, we should leave those piles a little longer, wait for the day and evening temps to be consistently warm. Waiting gives all of the little hibernating bees and other helpful insects and critters time to wake up and start to do their part in the growing process. Starting too early means those creatures die and we don't get the benefit of their contributions to grow a strong and healthy environment.
Did I start trying to grow myself too early. Yes, I think I did.
I pulled a card last week from an oracle deck. Yes, I do things like that. I had one question. I asked myself as I shuffled, 'What should I focus on for this month?'
The card I drew was 'Trust': trust in my intuition, trust in what my gut was telling me. I didn't think my gut was going to tell me to reevaluate what I've been doing for a couple of years now, but here I am. And just to test it out, I wrote down the words.
I am not a business. I am not an entrepreneur.
I am a hobbyist.
I write. I craft.
At this moment, in this season of my life, I do not want to hustle and fulfill algorithms, and I am perfectly happy with that.