Back In the Saddle Again

It's kind of hard to spit out the witty and intelligent prose you people are used to getting from me (ha!) while my new kitten* crawls all over me and I have the Back In the Saddle chorus going through my head incessantly. 
Also: the not-so-new-kitten, now more of a mildly obese cat, keeps hissing evilly.  Not at me, but at the new kitten and then when that doesn't work, inanimate objects as she sees fit.

I am, however, back in the proverbial saddle.  I am writing again (can't argue with that, eh?), I am taking more interest in taking care of myself (going to get my hair cut and something done with it after...6...8...12? months of doing absolutely nothing), and I have not so much crawled as been YANKED out of my black hole of semi-depression and unhappiness.  This all happened last week, as I traveled to Los Angeles for the Last Hurrah of the store.

There's not much I can say to concisely explain the Store Situation, but in an attempt to sum it up, I will say that it has been an Experience to out-experience all others.  It has been awful, it has been wonderful, and above all, it has been DIFFICULT.  Difficult to the point of being basically impossible; an uphill battle that we could never win; a web of deception from which we are STILL trying to extricate ourselves.  That's the wordy emotional short-descript, the logical numbers-based explanation is that the previous owners told us, our accountants, our attorneys, and the IRS that the store was grossing a certain amount per year in sales, and we bought THAT store.  You know, the one that was grossing A CERTAIN AMOUNT PER YEAR IN SALES.  Actually what we got though, was some other store completely, one that was NOT EVER grossing that certain amount per year in sales.  So we bought a dying business, one that the previous owners were trying desperately to get out from under, and when they discovered that no one wanted to BUY a dying business, decided that hey, I bet people might want to buy a thriving business!  Let's just lie! 

And it worked.

We are dumb.  But not really, that is one of the mindsets that got me OUT of the saddle in the first place.  That and truly believing that the store and all the misery it has caused was all MY fault, that somehow I could have known what two accountants and an attorney and the US government didn't know, that I convinced by so much arm-twisting my father and brother-in-law and his wife to participate in this business endeavor, and that now that the business is failing that it is ALL MY FAULT, EVERYTHING IS ALL MY FAULT, I HAVE CAUSED SO MUCH PAIN FOR EVERYONE AND I AM A TERRIBLE, STUPID PERSON.

Isn't that an impressive amount of self-confidence?

But the facts of the matter (when I choose to recognize them and step out of my world of self-depreciating guilt) are that I never convinced anyone to participate in the business, they all saw the same numbers I did and WANTED to do it.  The fact is, I didn't go to school to be a CPA, our accountants did, and I, although I had plans to go, have not been to law school either.  But our attorneys have!  And they all believed in the business as well.  We all saw the same balance sheets, all saw the same financial statements, and all researched and believed the made-up statistics. It was a good trick.  And we all equally bought into the business, AKA the Lie-To-End-All-Lies.

Another fact is that we have now had the store for over a year, and our sales have been excellent.  We have done better this past year than the previous owners had done in quite a few years.  Everyone told us to expect our first year to be the hardest; to expect lower sales; to give ourselves a learning curve.  But we went ahead and blew all of that out of the water, bringing in new merchandise, giving the store a major and much-needed face lift, and adding an entire GENERATION to our demographic.  We have kicked proverbial ass.

But it isn't enough.  We started in such a hole behind such a boulder up against such a wall (of cliches, apparently) that we would have had to do better than the previous owners EVER did, by quite a large margin, to even BREAK EVEN.  What a great deal, right?

So back to the Last Hurrah, the one I had last week in Los Angeles.  Basically, unless something miraculous happens (i.e., the legal system actually WORKING), the store is going down.  And I have been in quite a funk about it.  I have had a really hard time understanding how to be happy about a situation that has been nothing but bad, worse, and even worse.  How can I not live a life of stress and misery when nearly every day I get MORE bad news?  How am I supposed to smile and gracefully accept no paycheck, no respite, no justice for over a year now?

Well, the answer is that I was seeking the wrong answers.  There are no answers to those questions.  Or maybe those answers exist, somewhere, but they aren't known to me or anyone else on this earth.  The questions I should have been asking are not WHY or HOW or WHAT DO I DO.  Who cares why this happened to me, or to my brother-in-law, or to his wife, or to my dad?  Who cares how I am supposed to be happy in these circumstances?  Who cares about what I'm supposed to do with no paycheck or any of the financial security that it might bring?

I drove myself into a very dark place by asking those questions, and the only way I have FINALLY begun to see the light again is by my brother and his girlfriend telling me to get over myself.

What's the big deal? they asked.  Why are you letting yourself be so miserable?  So you bought a business, and it's not going so great.  Well, you must be the first person who's had that happen, right?  Oh, well, then, you MUST be the only person who has ever had financial struggles.  No?  The only person ever who has wondered why God placed them smack in the middle of a mess?  Hmmm.  Then maybe, just MAYBE, it's not that big of a deal.

So what, if the store goes down?  Have you tried your best?  Have you done everything you could possibly do?  So what if you have to face your worst-case-scenario: filing bankruptcy, corporately?  That will almost certainly NOT happen, but even if it does?  So what!  Are you dead?  Are you going to ever be able to recover?  Are you, at the ripe old age of 25, going to ever be able to build your financial history back up again?

I have a wonderful husband, a beautiful house that we built ourselves, a great and supportive family, a God who loves me and promises to take care of me, and a business experience gone bad.

So I spent last week in Los Angeles, buying what might very well be my last round of inventory for the store, and getting great and much needed guidance from the Lord, through my brother and his girlfriend.

I am going down with the ship, people.  I have tried my best at the store, and I will continue trying my best as it either thrives or fails in these next few months.  Because it might thrive, it really might.  We have a great shop, great merchandise, and a year of really good sales to build upon.  But if it fails, I will be the last one on the helm of that ship, standing proud, knowing that there was absolutely nothing I did wrong, and nothing I could have done differently to prevent the sinking.

*2 year anniversary present from my husband, who HATES cats passionately.  I guess he likes me after all.

Comments

[Laurie]

It is SO good to read that you are in a better place, emotionally at least. I am SO impressed and proud of you for even having the guts to try to own your own business at our age, no matter what the outcome. And think of it this way- yes, the business might fail. BUT, YOU did not!!! You said it yourself- the store kicked ass, right?! Did better than it had in years? Attracted a whole new range of customers? That's awsome!! You should be proud of that. Despite what you inherited and had no control over, did you do what you set out to do with the things you DID have control over?

And on a totally different note- I'm so happy for you and your new kitten!!! BIG points for the hubby! Our not-so-new kitten is crazy fat too. Do you think they go through a growth spurt and get leaner as they go from their "teenage" body to their adult body??

[regan]

reiterating what's said above, i'm proud of what you've done as well. i also walked in to a dying business, worked myself to death for a year, only to find it fall out from under me very, very quickly. different situation though; but eerily similar. the money for the shop was embezzled from an oil drilling company; assets seized, yada yada.

like you, i took it personally when i shouldn't have. i tried my best, i did well, and i actually made the place break even first, then break into profitability in the first 6 months. no one expected it or thought it was possible.

so i'll hang my hat on that, instead of the fact that all my hard work has evaporated as quickly as i showed up.

just go down swinging.