The Story Behind Rolling in D🤦🏻♀️h: Divine Disaster Diaries (Part 1)
From a Breadwinning Business Owner Living in New York City
“Creativity requires faith. Faith requires that we relinquish control.”
—Julia Cameron
✍️ June 11, 2023
What a shitshow of a week.
We’re six months into 2023.
I’m three weeks away from my business turning 12.
Four months away from turning 40.
Life and work haven’t felt this hard since 2013, a decade ago, one I dubbed in hindsight as my “apocalypse year.”
Back then, everything was falling apart faster than I could fix it.
No amount of yoga classes, deep breaths, or gratitude lists helped. I was running out of money, running out of friends, and most of all, running out of confidence and hope — two essential ingredients for the self-employed.
By the end of 2013, I was tired of being single, had no clue what would follow my debut blog and book Life After College (I just knew I was tired of talking about it), and had no scalable streams of income that could save me from being the (exhausted and creatively spent) bottleneck in my business.
Fast forward a decade—still living in the same city running the same business—and my word of the year is thrive.
I can’t think of anything less apt.
Unless the memo I’m getting louder than I would like from the universe is that the way to thriving is to burn down half of the business as I knew it.
If there is a silver lining to this year’s business cloud, it’s pure projection and hope that perhaps I’m meant to raze the corporate comforts (once again) and double-down on the parts of the business that enliven me most during the second half of this trip around the sun.
🌞 Speaking of the Sun . . .
With my natal sun, Pluto, and Saturn in my second house of money and values, I have always felt the stern gaze of discipline and financial pressure.
An astrologer once told me that Pluto, representing cycles of death and rebirth, sitting in my house of money, meant that I’d go through times like this, but that I would always rise again like the phoenix. Here’s hoping.
How can you know for sure when you’re in the middle of it? There are plenty of people who don’t rebuild, they only spiral deeper into despair.
I looked for answers in my astrology chart last night, landing on an unmissable transit: Pluto square Pluto. One’s hitting my fourth house representing home and family, the other my house of material resources. No wonder supporting the household—specifically financially—has felt so hard.
According to our friends at Astrology.com:
When transiting Pluto forms a square aspect with natal Pluto, you will feel propelled into a regenerative time period of decay and growth. You will feel catalyzed to break through old barriers and restrictions in your life.
As a part of this creative process, there will be destructive aspects to deal with. Anything in your life that has become stagnant will need to be shed and released, but in some cases, you may strongly resist the changes taking place due to losing something or someone that has brought you a sense of security.
The image of a snake shedding its skin fits, as you will sense you are growing beyond the boundaries of your old identity.
😬 Big Fears Follow Big Dreams
They say we overestimate what we can do in a year, but underestimate what we can do in a decade.
On one hand, I could have never dreamed of being where I am right now, at this confusing juncture of mid-2023:
12 years of living in my soul city of Manhattan, in an apartment I’ve owned for four (even if precariously so)
A loving husband (seven years into our relationship) and a three-year-old angel-in-fur-coat doggie
Over 12 years of self-employment (I finally exhaled once I surpassed five)
Two podcasts and three books under my belt
On the other hand, for as much as I have gratefully gained, as I write this in June, I am soaked in stress. (I’ll explain why in a bit, but in short: getting The News from my biggest Former Corporate Client.)
As the primary breadwinner and a small business owner, everything sits atop my shoulders. I am the main provider for the three of us now, and our combined medical expenses alone spiral faster than I can earn to keep up with at the moment.
My business does fine for a single person, but with losing so much corporate work, my steadiest source of abundant revenue, during these three-plus pandemic-impacted years (and admittedly not making tedious efforts to chase after it) — I just haven’t redesigned my business fast enough to provide what we need as a family.
This feeling—choked by fear and pressure—is one of my biggest fears realized.