Party

This past Thursday night I held a big, fat, sweet and sparkly party to celebrate the first anniversary of moving the business to a stand alone shop.

It was a huge night for me. HUGE. Not just for me but for the business as a whole. I looked pretty fucking fantastic. The room was filled with people who love me, who love the work my business produces, or who don't love me or the business yet but will as a result of that party. It was just one enormously great night - the food was great, the atmosphere buzzing, the love and excitement was just overwhelming.

The business - and the event - were total triumphs.

Sitting here typing this a few days after the fact, I'm actually not feeling hugely sweet and sparkly about it, and I probably should be. I actually feel quite bittersweet about it. I feel much as I did when the triplets turned a year old. There was of course the overwhelming feeling of relief that we'd made it that far - the day they were born I very clearly remember looking at these 3 kicking, pink squirmy things and thinking, "WHAT THE HELL DID I GET MYSELF INTO?"  I felt an enormous amount of pride that my three scrawny babies had turned into chubby-cheeked pre-toddlers. There was the incredible sense of achievement that the children, DH and I had all made it to the one year mark with our sanity still mostly intact, and all of us were happy and healthy. Not, of course, that there was every any doubt about that, but... you know. When the kids turned one I felt as though I could finally, finally just EXHALE the tiniest little bit.

The birthday of the shop brought up all of the same emotions - relief that the rent is still getting paid, pride that the business is growing as it needed to in order to justify the new location, achievement that it's been such an awesome year.

Even with all of that happiness - there is a small part of me which was sad then, and is sad now. It's a little overwhelming - and a little sad, too, that the 'firsts' (for this business anyway) are gone now. Just memories of exciting times and shiny new things. It's been such an incredible year, and in some ways so emotionally and physically exhausting - but tomorrow I'll wake up and need to do it again. And again the day after that and the day after that and the day after that. Small business ownership, like parenthood, does not just stop one day. Nobody throws you a big lunch and gives you a gold watch in recognition of your service. It's just you, toughing it out, every single day.

It's hard, lonely, exhausting work. And I love it, I really do - otherwise I wouldn't be doing it in the first place. I'm hoping the business follows the same pattern as the children have, which is that they've grown beautifully with each passing year, have become a hell of a lot more fun (but a hell of a lot more challenging) as time has marched onwards, and the rewards for my hard work are many and frequent. I'm pretty certain that if I managed that with my human babies, it shouldn't be too hard to manage it with my shop baby.

...and if Biz Guy (and my brain) have anything to do with it, I suspect the bigger first I'm celebrating is really the first of many successful, amazing adventures in business. My human babies are busy getting on with the business of growing up, as is the business baby.. It's probably high time *I* got on with the business of growing up as well.