Random thoughts.
Well fair week is upon me, the fair grounds is filled with the hustle and bustle of people setting up and preparing for the fair. Tomorrow the campers start rolling in and before I know it Friday will be here. This is the time of year I get very nervous, it's a lot of money going out in speculation on products I'm not sure I'll sell. The rowdy and obnoxious teenagers trying to pull one over on me will start coming in and so begins everyone's constant bitching about not being able to park in my lot, or not getting to use my bathroom, or not getting to use my phone, or being able to harass people from the front of my store. It's usually more stress than anything for me. It's 15 hours a day being stuck in this place with no break. Last year I nearly went bankrupt because of the fair, but everyone just assumes I make enough off of one week to pay my bills for a year. That is so wrong. On a good year I profit enough to catch my bills up and usually pay myself since I take a week off of my second job. Last year I was left with tons of inventory I didn't get rid of and everyone bitched I ran out of other stuff. I was hoping I wouldn't even be here for this fair because of that, but alass, here I am.
So anyway, this is the week, I've ordered conservatively and hoping for the best. Come next Friday morning change is being instituted. I'm not really announcing it to the general public until next thursday, but I'm changing the store hours to just Tuesdays from 11-7. I can no longer afford to pay out the kind of money it takes to keep this place open for people. It's within my best interest to go back to work full time and maintain the store on a part time basis. I have to do this for me and my checkbook. I have been borrowing to keep the doors open for some time and I just can't afford to keep doing it, the money is out, the money is gone and there is none left. This town has showed me what it's made of and flipped me the bird the final time.
So anway with that news out of the way I spent some time with Jonny today. Some may remember Johnny from a blog a couple years that I wrote that can be found here. Johnny has had some trouble over the last six months. He was having a hard time swallowing food and went to the doctor, long story short is they discovered it was a tumor. They treated him to shrink the tumor so they could remove it, but when they recently went to remove it they discovered at least 12 more growing all over the place and stitched him back up and the surgeon gave him 2 months to live. I spoke with him today and the doctor in Toledo reviewed the information and told him it could be 3 months up to 18 months depending on treatment etc...
I've been battling with what to say to him if I saw him and today he came in to update me and I was at a loss. I tried not to pitty him or anything like that because I don't think he would care for that. I let him talk, and talk he did. He's going tomorrow to talk to the doctor's about his options but he's planning on fighting. He said he's been praying a lot and he knows he's too young to go and he's not done here yet. He said when they opened him up the tumor moved away from his esophagus and down to his liver, which he knows is bad news, but he said now he can eat without discomfort so he can regain his strength. I encouraged him and made sure he had people that were checking up on him from time to time and going with him to his appointments. He seems pretty determined.
He also told me how scared he is, and I just don't know how to react to that. I told him it's o.k. to be scared. He also told me how angry he was, how he spoke to God in a matter unfitting to a christian and he would only get angrier. I told him it was o.k. to be angry with God as long as he didn't stop talking to God, to not give up hope and not lose faith, and he agreed. I tried to tell him the things that were on my mind, but I couldn't get to them all in conversation. I can't imagine being in his position, but he said it certainly changes your perspective on things. We had a good chat today and he's taking it better than I would have expected. Pray for him when you get a chance.
One thing we talked about were regrets. It's something that goes through my mind quite often actually because people always ask me..."Do you regret ever buying this place?" and some days I want to answer yes, somedays I wish I had never moved back and taken this on, but I see the good that came out of it as well. I do no regret doing this, I do not regret anything in my past. The things I've done in the past as well as the present are decisions I make based on who I am. Sometimes they aren't the smartest decisions, sometimes I do things that make me realize that a certain part of me is unneccessary. Not that it shouldn't be a part of who I am, but there are reasons that part of me is not the decision maker. lol. Jonny said he seems that since before he retired it seemed that every decision he's made has been the wrong one, that he keeps making bad decisions and getting nowhere. I asked him if he thought he'd still be who he was without those decisions. I know I wouldn't be who I am today without the bad decisions I've made in the past.
We can only learn from bad decisions. Some have a longer sting of aftermath than others, but each time we make a decision it's based on us, there was something about that decision that made us feel safe, or made us feel alive, or something along those lines. There was something just so enticing about that decision that we made it. If it's a bad one, we just have to learn from it and move on. My advice to Johnny was simple, all we can do is keep making decisions, right or wrong, when we fall we have to get back up because the next decision could be the right one. Johnny awakens the old Pete, the old Pete that believed there was good in everything, that there was good in everyone. He awakens a part of me that I've missed, the part that could look through a bad situation and keep a steady eye on the light at the end. I've missed him so.
I've been having a very hard time lately, I've been cranky and moody and down right mean at times lately and I've noticed, but do little to stop it, until now. I want to rediscover myself, have faith in people again, to be able to let bigons be bigons and keep moving forward. I need to press through this bad time right now and keep my eye on the future. I'm going to work harder at that, to not be the constantly bitching person I have been as of late, because as Johnny told me today............"Life's too short for that shit."
So anyway, this is the week, I've ordered conservatively and hoping for the best. Come next Friday morning change is being instituted. I'm not really announcing it to the general public until next thursday, but I'm changing the store hours to just Tuesdays from 11-7. I can no longer afford to pay out the kind of money it takes to keep this place open for people. It's within my best interest to go back to work full time and maintain the store on a part time basis. I have to do this for me and my checkbook. I have been borrowing to keep the doors open for some time and I just can't afford to keep doing it, the money is out, the money is gone and there is none left. This town has showed me what it's made of and flipped me the bird the final time.
So anway with that news out of the way I spent some time with Jonny today. Some may remember Johnny from a blog a couple years that I wrote that can be found here. Johnny has had some trouble over the last six months. He was having a hard time swallowing food and went to the doctor, long story short is they discovered it was a tumor. They treated him to shrink the tumor so they could remove it, but when they recently went to remove it they discovered at least 12 more growing all over the place and stitched him back up and the surgeon gave him 2 months to live. I spoke with him today and the doctor in Toledo reviewed the information and told him it could be 3 months up to 18 months depending on treatment etc...
I've been battling with what to say to him if I saw him and today he came in to update me and I was at a loss. I tried not to pitty him or anything like that because I don't think he would care for that. I let him talk, and talk he did. He's going tomorrow to talk to the doctor's about his options but he's planning on fighting. He said he's been praying a lot and he knows he's too young to go and he's not done here yet. He said when they opened him up the tumor moved away from his esophagus and down to his liver, which he knows is bad news, but he said now he can eat without discomfort so he can regain his strength. I encouraged him and made sure he had people that were checking up on him from time to time and going with him to his appointments. He seems pretty determined.
He also told me how scared he is, and I just don't know how to react to that. I told him it's o.k. to be scared. He also told me how angry he was, how he spoke to God in a matter unfitting to a christian and he would only get angrier. I told him it was o.k. to be angry with God as long as he didn't stop talking to God, to not give up hope and not lose faith, and he agreed. I tried to tell him the things that were on my mind, but I couldn't get to them all in conversation. I can't imagine being in his position, but he said it certainly changes your perspective on things. We had a good chat today and he's taking it better than I would have expected. Pray for him when you get a chance.
One thing we talked about were regrets. It's something that goes through my mind quite often actually because people always ask me..."Do you regret ever buying this place?" and some days I want to answer yes, somedays I wish I had never moved back and taken this on, but I see the good that came out of it as well. I do no regret doing this, I do not regret anything in my past. The things I've done in the past as well as the present are decisions I make based on who I am. Sometimes they aren't the smartest decisions, sometimes I do things that make me realize that a certain part of me is unneccessary. Not that it shouldn't be a part of who I am, but there are reasons that part of me is not the decision maker. lol. Jonny said he seems that since before he retired it seemed that every decision he's made has been the wrong one, that he keeps making bad decisions and getting nowhere. I asked him if he thought he'd still be who he was without those decisions. I know I wouldn't be who I am today without the bad decisions I've made in the past.
We can only learn from bad decisions. Some have a longer sting of aftermath than others, but each time we make a decision it's based on us, there was something about that decision that made us feel safe, or made us feel alive, or something along those lines. There was something just so enticing about that decision that we made it. If it's a bad one, we just have to learn from it and move on. My advice to Johnny was simple, all we can do is keep making decisions, right or wrong, when we fall we have to get back up because the next decision could be the right one. Johnny awakens the old Pete, the old Pete that believed there was good in everything, that there was good in everyone. He awakens a part of me that I've missed, the part that could look through a bad situation and keep a steady eye on the light at the end. I've missed him so.
I've been having a very hard time lately, I've been cranky and moody and down right mean at times lately and I've noticed, but do little to stop it, until now. I want to rediscover myself, have faith in people again, to be able to let bigons be bigons and keep moving forward. I need to press through this bad time right now and keep my eye on the future. I'm going to work harder at that, to not be the constantly bitching person I have been as of late, because as Johnny told me today............"Life's too short for that shit."
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