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It’s been one hell of a couple of weeks. Not entirely in the best way, but not a total crap shoot either.

I’ve been piecing the website back together after losing all the files (but not the database, so yay for that) a month or so ago. I know, you’d think I’d have gotten it done faster, right? It’s my website. Except, it didn’t happen. Instead, I threw energy at clothing designs and chain work (which at least helped pay the bills!) and working Jamberry.

As for clothing designs, it’s been on my mind a lot this week. Quirks did pretty well that first month, but it’s been slow the last few months, and I’ve been wondering if the first month was just a lucky flush and now it’s time for it to die. Which is how things seem to go with most new businesses – it has a lot to do with reaching the end of your immediate circles. Either they have ordered or unfollowed/decided to ignore you, usually – and then it takes money or luck to reach more people.

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I’m chronically short on the money needed to make the money needed to make money… so now that I’ve hit that hellish, discouraging wall, I find myself wondering why I even bother trying at this point. (Blind hope that something will work.)

It’s not that I think my work sucks or doubt my work, before you tell me it’s good and to stick it out – I already suspect that my designs are solid. (That or my friends lie to me, and I really prefer to think better than that of my friends, yanno?) But there is a wall in business where you have to expand your reach or your business peters out. Or dies. And that’s where I’ve hit with jewelry (it qualifies as a hobby right now and that works), and I’m starting to suspect I hit it even faster with the clothing.

It’s damn depressing, let me tell you. Here I was, believing for all those years, when I was told that if you did good work, and kept putting it out there, and worked hard, that you’d succeed. And then WHAM. It crashes, like a Smart Car running into a mailbox. The mailbox goes on, as if nothing was wrong, but that Smart Car isn’t feeling so smart now that it’s engine is sitting in it’s trunk.

 

Here I was, believing for all those years, when I was told that if you did good work, and kept putting it out there, and worked hard, that you’d succeed. And then WHAM. It crashes, like a Smart Car running into a mailbox. The mailbox goes on, as if nothing was wrong, but that Smart Car isn’t feeling so smart now that it’s engine is sitting in it’s trunk.”

[/et_pb_text][/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”1_3″][et_pb_image admin_label=”Image” src=”https://www.abigailmarkov.com/wp-content/uploads/40852_306171.png” show_in_lightbox=”on” url_new_window=”off” use_overlay=”off” animation=”left” sticky=”off” align=”left” force_fullwidth=”off” always_center_on_mobile=”on” use_border_color=”off” border_color=”#ffffff” border_style=”solid” alt=”Chimera Waves Tank from ShopQuirks.com – cool, right?” title_text=”Chimera Waves Tank from ShopQuirks.com – cool, right?”] [/et_pb_image][et_pb_blurb admin_label=”Blurb” url_new_window=”off” use_icon=”off” icon_color=”#213242″ use_circle=”off” circle_color=”#213242″ use_circle_border=”off” circle_border_color=”#213242″ icon_placement=”top” animation=”top” background_layout=”light” text_orientation=”left” use_icon_font_size=”off” use_border_color=”off” border_color=”#ffffff” border_style=”solid”]

Chimera Waves Tank from ShopQuirks.com – pretty, right?

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(That’s a joke, in case you felt some need to defend Smart Cars in the comments. Don’t. You have better things to do, or you are worse off than I am and that is just SAD, because I literally spent time trying to figure out where people get discounts for products on Amazon in trade for reviews which means I’ve read enough reviews to KNOW that it’s a thing to start off with. It’s SnagShout, in case you were wondering too.)

I know I’m definitely doing the the working hard and putting the work out there, and I’m not just flailing about hoping things work. I’ve read the books, done the reading, read up on marketing. Which leaves the quality of the work. I really don’t think my work is crap. (Says everyone?) Too many people seem to genuinely like it. (Often broke people like me, which presents another brain puzzle for another time.)

It’s not enough to just do good work and work hard. There’s a another factor, one you’ve heard of but probably didn’t realize was quite as big of a deal until it broke one of your businesses that was otherwise solid.

It’s not enough to just do good work and work hard. There’s a another factor, one you’ve heard of but probably didn’t realize was quite as big of a deal until it broke one of your businesses that was otherwise solid. What we’re not told is that if you are broke, you’re probably going to stay broke unless someone unbrokeifies you or you get really lucky. Hard work on it’s own will help if you have the base means to get briefly ahead, and run like hell to stay ahead. It snowballs from there. But if you’re already working hard and as smart as you can and you’re still behind? That’s when it takes money. The very thing you don’t have when you’re broke, or living paycheck (or commission) to paycheck (or commission.)

I KNOW that I’m far from the only one dealing with this. I’m definitely not the only one discouraged and burning out. I’m pretty sure I’m also not the only one wondering why there is so little support from friends and/or family. Amirite?

(You too, huh? Pull up a device and grab a drink.)

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Garden: The plumerias are blooming.

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Current Wraps: Trippin’ & Stargazing

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Current Jewelry Projects:

Single Chain Commission
Thin Double for personal.

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Most Recent Painting:

Your Stories Without Me
12in x 12in encaustic.

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So, that’s where I am lately. it’s been a lot of bust ass to get nowhere discouraging feels going around lately. A lot of feeling like I’d make more headway if I ran headfirst into the wall. (Hur hur.)

Oh, but be grateful, right? Be thankful for what you have! Think positive! Do work you don’t like, don’t be so picky! Fantastic advice, unless you are hardwired to need accomplishment to stay base line and are, uh, neurologically quirky. And aren’t dealing with some limiting and significant disability that makes working a job for minimum wage detrimental to your staying alive.

Ugh. No, I’m not being dramatic. I just haven’t TOLD most people this stuff, because some part of me wants to think I could still maybe be okay-average-successful someday. I don’t want to let people down. I want to be strong and smart and perfect because somehow my brain learned that perfect is what I should be or else I am a failure, no middle ground, and no amount of logic and reasoning is convincing it otherwise. (It’s a constant battle that I do okay with most of the time, when situations are stable and somewhat consistent.)

I keep hoping that just maybe this state of being is temporary. Only, I have had therapists tell me that it’s not, and it’s not going away. This hasn’t stopped me in the past from trying to do more or do Normal, but it turned out to be really bad for my not planning suicide/becoming manic/having panic attacks. Since we’re sharing and all. It’s gotten worse with time, so now I work from home. All the time. From when I wake up to when I go to sleep.

So, hey, that’s me. Fighting to accomplish little things so I don’t have to fight as hard to not want to die (a special kind of brain sick, that one) and ARG, it’s insult to injury when I hit that “You need money to reach more” point and am not making the money needed, and am too fucking broke to pull it out of the monthly budget that is already stretched to the limit, and then feel like an EPIC failure. Which was the reason I started the businesses in the first place, to make that damn near translucent budget a little less thin and feel somewhat successful. (So we could save up for a down payment on a house so we can stop paying rent and have a little more breathing room in the budget and yay American Dream, right?)

Do you see the hell-cycle that is? You probably have been there. If not, I’m glad – it’s a hurt-y place and I’d not wish it on anyone. I’d get just go get another job if not for the other factors listed above. So my options are exactly what I’m doing. And when it comes to those, I still consistently push past what I should be doing, because survival. I won’t not pay bills, dammit, even if on some I never make any real progress. (Divorce does a number on your credit – it wasn’t trips and shopping. It was paying for a divorce from a narcissistic now-ex-spouse.)

Blarg.

So I work. I work to tears pretty regularly lately, when The Brain Sick results in wishing I was dead, feeling hopeless, and panicking when I crawl in bed at night. Plenty for days, I recite what I did and remind myself that I did get things done and tell myself that I got enough done. I do this because if I don’t, no matter how hard I work, I’ll go to bed feeling like a failure because all I’m doing is running as hard as I can in place. What’s the point, my brain asks.

Clearly, my brain missed the memo on self-preservation.

My poor husband, he can see all this happening, and it breaks his heart that he can’t do more – but the man has CANCER, y’all. There’s not a hell of a lot he can do.

Regarding cancer: We’ve beaten it down into maintenance, but he still spikes fevers and we still have to keep up his meds, and watch for symptoms, and so I try to hide it, but he knows me. So he can tell.

Aside: Clearly, I have a list of points that keep me going, including him and my fantastic kids, which are held together by a very tiny bit of hopeful bias that lets me hold on that it *might* get better, even if the odds are slim.)

So… yeah. I worked pretty hard on a fourth or fifth business attempt this past month, and juggled what I could on all the rest in attempt to tread water harder. (Swimmers will get why this is a lesson in futility, but the alternative is downing, so you tread.) I’ve been getting bits at a time done. I’m still working Jamberry and it’s doing pretty well; Patreon is active, if quiet; I have two (almost complete) chain commissions; and I’m still working Posh, even if it is really quiet right now, too. (That happens with direct sales.) Oh, and then the clothing at Quirks. All at the same time. All that and I still go to bed feeling like a failure. Failing at getting enough done, failing at getting even one step ahead, failing at being seen and heard, failing at being good enough in general. Failing at carrying my own weight in the family. I’m an adult. I’m not stupid, I hope. I should be able to do this. But I’m not, not in my mind. I’m just treading water, month to month, and it’s killing me. I want to do more for my family. I should be able to, right? If average people can, why can’t I?

Probably because I’m not standard average. (My husband just says I’m weird and he loves me.) But, I worry that means I’m not good enough because base line success is measured by how well you fit into a world built around average and if you can be better than average and still be average enough to be considered normal. (Or fake it. Or be so exceptional that you change the world.)

And then there’s me. I’ve been out here, fighting to be good enough and succeed for my entire (albeit short compared to plenty) life and I feel farther away now than I was in my 20’s. Not because my friends think less of me. Or because therapists or teachers have said I was somehow incompetent. I’m usually really good at whatever I try my hand at. Just not quite enough to be financially stable. (

Preemptive response to worries about money from people who don’t need to worry about money: Seriously? Did you just tell me that there’s more to life than money? Geeze, people, I know, but do you know what someone saying that feels like when you’re worried about ends meeting? It’s insulting, seriously. there’s more to life than air and food, too, but you see what it’s like when you don’t have quite enough of that.

Meh. I know. I’m just not THAT kind of average. (But I’m also not alone.) And this kind of not-normal makes pretending to be normal and doing the normal things that get you ahead in the world the kind of things that trigger OTHER things like irregular heart beats and suicidal thoughts. (And here I feel the need to point out that I work 12 hour days and am self taught and am kind and compassionate and would stay up until 3am talking to friends if they needed me and sit with my husband through chemo and raised a special needs child and my kids say I’m their hero, so I’m not a fuck up, and hey, I make some cool stuff too, but this is something I deal with.) And I hate myself for it all. All of the above.

 

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I know I’m considered neurodivergent, and I’ve spent no few number of years wishing I could be neurotypical. (You should have seen one therapists face when I told them that.) So, here I am, feeling like a failure to date, and as a result I figure that I don’t do anything well enough to balance out the shitty side of being weird, so if I was typical at least it would stop hurting so much that I am such a failure at being able to pretend to be normal. If I was smart, I should be able to do that, right?

Clearly, some kind of divergent at least.

Yeah, no. Haven’t gotten that way to work just yet. If you have, bless you, rock on with your bad self. <3

This is what goes on in my head most of every day. It’s the baseline I fight against to get out of bed, and then do other stuff on top of it all. This and thinking in colors and having a hellish time speaking words, and happy not leaving the house for weeks at a time because I sound like an idiot when I speak, and I know I’m not. (I know, I ramble when I just write, but I can explain evolution to drunk person in layman’s terms without having to think all that hard, so I can’t be that stupid. Also, I know a few big words. CLEARLY NOT AN IDIOT, KNOWS BIG WORDS.)

I know this, and I also know I’m not alone, and you know what? That DOES help.

Okay. Enough rambling. I have more work to do. Let’s see about getting some of the store images fixed, shall we? Maybe that’ll be a nice dopamine burst. Fingers crossed.

Oh, side note. Started brewing kombucha at home. Old pickle jar, got a super discounted starter kit on a get deals in trade for reviews site. Put it all together today. Fingers crossed this helps with brain sick and Steve’s sicks. I haven’t had coffee in over a month, and I’ve been reusing my tea leaves for at least week+, so this would be nice to have in the house. (I didn’t get tea so I could get this.) Especially if it means it helps with the sicks, yanno?

What? I TOLD you I was weird.

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