Hard Work And How I'm Not Allergic To It

I am beginning to wonder if I have been wearing a sign on my back my whole life that reads "Allergic to hard work". When I think back, I seem to hear an incessant echo of voices saying to me " well, you know, that's a lot of hard work" in warning to whatever it is I am proposing to do. When I wanted to be a professional poet people would tell me how hard it is to succeed at being a poet, how much work it is to submit manuscripts and get rejected again and again (and also the fact that no one really reads poetry any more was often offered up as a deterrent.) Every time I have ever mentioned wanting to own my own coffee shop I've heard the same thing "It's a lot of hard work, and you probably won't make any money." Or when I've mentioned wanting to open my own retail store: "It's a dog's life. An albatross around your neck. It's a lot of hard work."

Do I look like a person who's afraid of working hard? Have I ever given any one reason to believe that I cannot stand up to the challenge of putting my nose to the grindstone? I was helping to do my family's laundry by the time I was six years old. (I can't say I was ever good at it, but still, there I was, doing laundry at six.) I was doing regular chores from the time I was seven. By the time I was eleven I was babysitting for money, and also cleaning my parents entire house (woodwork and all) once a week for my allowance. My brother and sister did not vacuum their own rooms. I got my worker's permit when I was sixteen and paid for everything on my own besides my rent and some food. And I never stopped working hard.

It's not just that I have been working for as long as I can remember, it's that I have not been afraid to do dirty work either. I had tough jobs. When I was the shipping manager at Weston Wear I worked long hours lifting fifty pound boxes and steaming clothes with industrial strength steam (and gave myself some industrial sized burns too.). I wore boots and carried a packing knife around like a sheriff in a gold mining town, (my burns were my badges), always ready for the UPS man when he came. When I was the stock room girl at Staccato I may have worn some pretty floral dirndle skirts, I may have looked a tiny bit like Heidi on the gentle Swiss hillsides, but I could crush down twenty boxes in two minutes flat. The sales girls wouldn't even venture into the warehouse space unless forced at gunpoint (it was much too dark and dirty back there.)

I am beginning to believe that the power of our words is much stronger than the power of our actions. I have been working hard my whole life, and never once have I shied away from something because it might be too hard. But what I often tell people is that I'm a pretty lazy sedentary person. I often say that my favorite things to do are drink beer and read books. I guess I don't usually preface this statement with: "After a long day of digging post holes in bone dry dirt, planting forty potatoes, cleaning my house, and cooking a week's worth of meals, I like to drink beer and read books in my chair like a big fat lazy beast." It's kind of like how if you tell people in a bright and passionate manner how much you love life they will find it hard to believe you're diagnosed with major depressive disorder. It doesn't seem to occur to too many people that you can love life in spite of having to fight against encroaching darkness every day.

Maybe I should be flattered that people seem to simply believe whatever I say about myself. That they don't feel the need to look more closely, or to dig deeper. Maybe this is my secret super-power and I can use it to fight evil. Max is always asking me what my super power is (he insists that since he's a super hero, I must be one too because I'm his mother) I wonder if he would be impressed if I told him I had the power to make people believe anything I want them to believe about me? Nah, he'd just ask me what use that is against bad guys if it doesn't explode or shoot poison or knock them down. It's so hard to impress savvy five year olds!

The main thing is that Philip and I are finally opening a store like we've always dreamed of doing. I can feel the doubt and the concern out there amongst the loved ones. I can feel some "hard work" speeches just itching to be freed. This wouldn't happen if I was getting a job at Wendy's again, no one ever told me what hard work that would be, but honestly, that was some of the hardest work I've ever done because there was zero joy in it, there was almost no pay, and I got my change machine robbed. Hard work is nothing when you're passionate about what you're doing. It doesn't count when you look forward to what you're building. If poverty is coming our way, if ruination is to be the outcome of this venture, then it brings with it the sweetness of all great labors-of-love.* It brings with it the satisfaction of trying to make something worthy of remembrance.

I've decided not to listen to the speeches or be hurt by them this time around. I have not built my life around being a mouse. I have not built my life out of standing in the shadows of other people's towers of regret. I'm not afraid to reach for what I want, to work my ass off for what I want, and most important of all, I'm not afraid to fail. I've failed before, I'll fail again. But in between those failures I have forged great friendships, experienced a lifetime of valuable lessons, and become a person I can count on and sometimes even be proud of.

*This sentence is a classic example of the things I say that seem to mislead people. I don't actually think we're headed for poverty or ruination, but someone is bound to think I lack confidence because I've admitted that this is a possible outcome. What I actually think is that we have a great chance of success, it's just going to take a lot of work.