Epic Fail or Epic Win?

I owned a business.
It was several years ago now.

I left a good job that I had been at for close to 20 yrs.
I put all my proverbial eggs in that one basket.
My money, my creative juices, my blood sweat and tears.

I was excited at the prospect of being my own boss,
Of displaying my wild ideas for all the world to see,
using the skills I had acquired throughout my life.

I felt vulnerable, really vulnerable for the first time in my life.
I was putting myself out there on the big stage, with no excuses.
This was going to be a reflection of me, everything I loved, 
Cared about, and thought was cool.

This was it!
I was 50 and this was the beginning of my beautiful “second act”.

The first year was awesome!
It was tons of hard work with no days off, but I was okay with that.
This was my baby.
It needed me to nurture it, to make it my only focus,
And all was well.

The following year was 2008.
Things got dicey.
There was a feeling of dread in the air, like everyone was silently
waiting for the shoe to drop, holding their breath.
Money slowed waaaaaay down.

Then it was 2009 and the entire closet of shoes dropped.
It was loud!
The bottom seemed to fall out of everything.
People were scared. 
I’d never seen anything like it in all my years in retail.

Everything that was creative and wonderful and fun was gone.
Replaced by unpaid bills, days of not a single customer,
and sleepless nights with me wondering how I got myself into this!
How had I taken such an abundant, wonderful life and created 
This perfect sh* t storm !?

Then in September of that year God took pity on me,
She heard my prayers.
But God has a wicked sense of humor, and a flair for the dramatic.
She sent a flood.
A random, urban flood to sneak up in the middle of the night and wipe out my store.
I’m serious.
The fireman at the scene told me he had never seen water make a hard right turn.
But it did, and it all collected around and inside my sweet little store.
The one that was trying so hard, but just couldn’t stay afloat ( sorry for the pun).

This is the first time I asked myself the question:
Epic fail? Or epic win?
What do you think so far?

Xox Janet
(To be continued)…