One Little Text.

It’s snowing outside. It started snowing early. My insides were a bag of mixed emotions and the wind whipping through the window behind the couch I was sitting on didn’t really help my mood. As I sat there staring at the snow blowing and starting to cover the porch, I got a text. A text from a friend who owns a coffee shop in Nashville and it made me feel like a productive human again. You see, when we decided to take this job in Albany, I was going back to my old job; running our ticket company, but the venue opening date keeps getting pushed back, thereby giving me more time on my hands than I really know what to do with.

But then came this text and I instantly remembered that I was somebody who had skills and talents and here someone was willing to pay me to teach. I was so excited I couldn’t sit still. I forgot about the snow piling up on the porch and went and got my iPad in search of all the recipes from my bakery. I had instantly forgotten about the snow, the drafty windows in the house we are renting, Jerry the mouse and the cold. I had a purpose, and it felt great.

That text was a few days ago, and the glow of it has dimmed slightly, but I am still over the moon about flying back to Nashville for a week. I get to bake for two days. I get to see my kids. I get to get my haircut. I get to spend some time with dear friends I’ve left behind. I get to sleep in my own bed. I am really excited about my little trip back home. When we were buying the airline tickets, I starting thinking about how sitting on the couch and doing nothing makes you forget things, a lot of things. I forgot I was a successful business owner. I forgot I am a current business owner. I forgot I had worth, and that is a horrible thing to forget. Forgetting you have worth is such an easy thing for me to forget when I’m sitting on the couch plowing through 5 seasons of Six Feet Under. Yes, I know, you all read that last sentence and said: “of course you feel like you have no worth, you just watched sixty hours of a show about a Funeral Home.”  One little text from a fellow woman business owner can drag you out of your head and make you feel like your old self again. I am pretty sure the person who sent me that text has no idea what it meant to me, even though I did tell her.

I don’t know where, if anywhere, this teaching thing will take me, especially here in Albany where no one knows me. What I do know is that I am lucky to have the life I have even though right now Albany hasn’t turned out like I thought it would. I also know that I am grateful to the weather gods for providing me, so far, a mild winter in Upstate New York. I have yet to buy a real winter coat, and I would be delightfully happy if I could make it out of winter without one. Also for those wondering how my mouse situation is going, Jerry seems to be a well-feed, smart mouse. He doesn’t come out every day. He doesn’t like Peanut butter, and he apparently doesn’t like cheese. He doesn’t come out when I have four traps set out in various locations in the kitchen, but the first day I put those traps away, the next morning there is evidence that Jerry stopped by overnight.

So here’s to teaching, winter coats, and mice. Here’s to good friends who remember you even though you aren’t at home. And most of all here’s to feeling like you have worth.