On this day, twenty years ago I opened by first home based business. Well the first venture I really treated as a business. In the time between now and then, I’ve come to realize that my early endeavours in babysitting, pet sitting and household chores could have counted too. But the math is so much harder on sorting out when that all began and the number would likely make me sound old instead of just seasoned, so we’ll stick with twenty years.
For those who don’t know, I was a home child care provider. The joke has often been that I went from zero to six kids in six months – only it’s not a joke that it changed the trajectory of my life forever. If I hadn’t done that, would I have become a freelance writer and learned about marketing and promotion and press releases and copywriting? It’s kind doubtful I would have had that opportunity working in retail. Especially seeing as the store I worked for before my eldest was born vaporized into the world of dead businesses several years ago.
Now some would argue that I haven’t been an entrepreneur through it all. I would say it’s true I haven’t always had a viable and or running business through the entirety of the twenty years, but then I had two more children and moved 13 times since then. Some would say that it doesn’t count because I only work for myself part time now. I say it’s a good thing I stopped caring about what “some” would say about the things I do (or don’t do) about two years ago or so.
In any case, I’m claiming 20 years today, for myself, if no one else.
I had planned a long and glorious post about my journey and the lessons thus far, but in a classic Patrysha move, I injured by pinky finger on my right hand. I have no idea how and didn’t realize I’d done anything at all until the pain started and I found a scrape on the side of my hand. My hand is throbbing just having typed this much. So I’ll hit publish now and save the memories and lessons for another day.
One thing I do know and that I wanted to express is the thought that the first twenty years were an amazing learning experience and I’m so grateful for the lessons learned, but I feel done with the rehearsing. I think I’ll dedicate the next 20 years to taking the stage and leaving a legacy.