A New Beginning

"It is what it is." I have found this to be my new favorite expression. My husband and I have just gone through what one might call a "life change". We have each had to make a note of our monetary value, add up our IOU's, and make some business decisions that we didn't want to make. It's never fun finding out what you're worth (or not worth) on paper.

After much deliberation, I have had to close my business. A dream I had for years. A career in the only industry I know. My husband also had to stop operations in his franchise. We opened two businesses together in the same year and closed them together 3 1/2 years later. Luckily, we are a good team and without each other I don't know that we would've survived it all.

It was unfortunate that he had to stop operations but for him that's all it was. He quit working the territory and that was it. I don't mean to down play his situation in any way because with any business closure comes the feeling of failure. I just had a different experience than he did. I had to close a brick and mortar store and it was a very public event. Customers cried, I cried, vendors said how sorry they were, and friends looked at me with such sorrow.

They asked, "How are you handling it?" And I answered, "I'll be ok...it is what it is." They asked, "What will you do next?" And I answered, "I haven't really thought that far ahead....it is what it is." They inquired as to whether or not I will open another store in the future and I answered "I'm not sure. For now, I just need to let it be what it is."

From here I can choose to look at it as a failure (which is the easiest thing to do) or decide it's a new beginning. I choose the latter. There are so many reasons why it was the best decision I could've possibly made but it was also the hardest thing to do. It became a question of restructuring a stressful business or recovering my misplaced life. Life won.

Now it's time to start finding answers to those daunting questions.