It swept over me this week. That sinking feeling.
You know the kind, the gnawing sense that something’s really, really wrong. I’m not talking about losing the car keys or misplacing my specs, tho’ such activities may indeed occasionally upset the equilibrium of the Word Up world. No, I’m talking discombobulation, with bells on.
But try as I might, I could not discover the source of my angst. Aye, there’s the ongoing anxiety of what the hell to wear to the black tie biz event that me and the Mister are stepping out to, scarily soon. There’s the realisation that the Word Up Wean is coming to the end of his primary school dog days and will soon be heading up to where the tiresome teenagers and beastly bullies hang out (and believe me, that alone is enough to strike fear into even the hardest of parental hearts). There’s an awareness that we haven’t had a right stinking cold here at the Word Up nerve centre for these many long months, and are due to be felled by a vile virus any old autumnal time now – almost certainly mere hours before a pressing deadline, natch.
Nah, none of that explained the source of these feelings. Feelings of loss, of something not right. It’s been a bit weird and I’ve felt like a fraud, cos life is just dandy and I cannae complain. But still they were there, these feelings of absence, of a great yawning gap.
The dawning of why the gap was yawning finally broke for me when a chance comment passed the lips of a fellow female adventurer in small biz. It was a lightbulb moment, and no mistake. But bloody hell, ain’t it peculiar how sometimes we humans just can’t see the wood for the trees or hear the screaming of the screamingly obvious. It’s stunning that sometimes the simplest of statements deal the death blow to dim-wittery.
What she said caused a great big lump to form in my throat, and my beads to get weepy. This bold soul said, without an ounce of self pity, that running a small business for her has meant lack of sleep and shedloads of sacrifice. She sees her family, sometimes, but has more or less had to give up on time with her friends. Boom! And, aw naw! That’s exactly what’s been gettin’ my feelings in a fankle. Goddammit, I’m missing my mates.
Yeah, yeah I know something’s got to give in small business, this sole trading malarkey is as mad, and demanding, as the proverbial box of frogs, but absent friends ain’t exactly what I had on my own entrepreneurial agenda. I’m really, really missing the regular and much prized company of my dearest old muckers.
Yes, running a business is bonkers, and life’s madly busy, but being so neglectful of my nearest and dear costs too high a price. There’s just got to be time for laughter and tears, for shoulders to cry on, hysterical giggles and stories of old. For mutual acceptance of foibles and habits. And let’s not forget, high days and high jinks.
So guys, and you know who you are, I’ll do my damnedest to get back in the sidekick saddle, cannae wait to see you and hear all your guff.
