And All That Could Have Been

I think I'm gonna have her fix the eyes on the one to better match the other one, other than that, I'm happy with how these turned out.

I know lol, I made it sound like a bigger deal than what it is, but oh well.

So far, I've just sold cookies. I've done 2 markets, sold out my first market and had 2 left my mast market. And I filled an order for a friend for 200 cookies. (Which was exhausting, baking in the summer in a house with no air conditioning is not for the weak).

AND IT'S NOT FUCKING THERE.

I hate fucking USPS. And they don't take photos of their mail so I have zero clue if they just didn't deliver it, or it's at the wrong address.

But I was at least smart enough to include research along the way of how things are supposed to be done, what kind of certs or other requirements I might need, the best way to get the best end result, things like that. I guess I should specify this is a venture that will hopefully be profitable.

But now that there's a 'finish line' in sight after eight months of curating, testing, and researching... I. Am. Terrified.

I'm not trying to make big bucks or anything like that, at the end of the day I just want a little extra spending money and to make people happy with what I make. But I'm so afraid no one will buy anything or not be interested in my offerings, especially living in a small town where people are very vocal about their opinions on things.

I will always be there to celebrate and cheer people on. But behind closed doors, I end up feeling disappointed in myself. It's not jealousy- I don't want the things that they're doing...I just wish I could do something that would make me feel proud of myself. I just don't feel like I'm doing a good job in life. And I don't even know what would be my personal indicator of 'winning at life', I just know I haven't felt that feeling.

I have been happy, but all the bright spots have felt like checkpoints along the path to a bigger picture that I have no clue what the fuck is supposed to be. When I am happy I accomplished something, I also feel like it's not worthy of celebration or praise, and I have to keep going until I reach something big, while also feeling incapable of being out of my comfort zone, meaning I'm never going to ever make it to anything big.

I'm so terrified of failure and things going wrong, that when things seem to be moving along okay, I feel like the rug will get pulled out from under me soon. I don't know how to feel positive about anything in the future, only worry/stress.

Best I can do is blog and hope it rewires my brain?

It was uneventful. Felt like a waste to even go, because my sisters and my mom were basically all doing the talking, and I kinda just sat there.

Then I got a weird thing in the mail on Monday, a crystal hanging thing for the window, from my mom, with a weird sympathy message attached to it. She ordered it from etsy, and said it was an anniversary gift? Which is weird because it's extremely early, our anniversary isn't until May, and my sisters anniversaries are before mine (one is this month, the other is next month) so like...why?

Texting with one of my other sisters (the same one who thought the lunch thing was suspicious), she said my mom was out shopping at a bunch of stores and going to dinner. My mother has been a homebody for quite awhile now, so it's unusual that she's out. Also, I checked out court records in our state before the lunch thing, just to prepare myself for a possible divorce announcement, and I found out she's being sued for 6k in credit card debt, which coupled with her current spending is really sending up red flags to me.

I just have this feeling in the back of my mind that she's planning on something stupid. But if I even asked or said anything, she would just get mad at me and deny everything. Even at lunch, when my sister asked if there was like bad news or something, she swore it was nothing and just wanted all her kids together.

We literally have done nothing all together out since we all were off on our own. This is not something she's ever asked for or complained about.

My one sister and I are both in agreement that something more is going on here, but we both know she will never say anything about it. So at least I'm not alone in all of this.

She wants to meet for lunch on Thursday with the siblings and me. I did text at least one of the siblings to make sure this was not a trap of some kind, just because hearing from her wanting a lunch date felt like the way to felt to be in trouble for dumb shit when I was younger.

Thankful I won't be alone, but at the same time, wondering what all this is about. Because she says it's just lunch, but it's out of the blue, and she hates leaving the house for anything (Christmas she complained to me she 'cant keep doing all this' and the 'this' in question was going to gather with family at my sister's house in the town next to hers, a 10 minute drive). I am very suspicious. Wondering if she's feeling depressed again (she was in a psych ward close to this time two years ago) or maybe she's getting another divorce (I did look that up, nothing filed, but you know people talk about doing stuff before they follow through with it).

The most I can find is that there appears to be a correlation between the combination hormonal birth control with a higher risk of depression. Which could account for why I can suddenly get shit done at a rate I have not been able to in...well my kid turns 14 this year, so almost 14 years.

I still have issues with task paralysis. But it's not as bad as it has been. Like, I've been able to keep up with dishes and meal planning with way little effort than I previously had to. I haven't been horrible with the dishes, I just never rushed to get them done or worried if I went to bed with dishes in the sink. In the last few weeks, there's been little to no dishes in the sink before I go to bed. I know, it's just dishes, but that's a big change in how things were before.

And the obviousness of my skin issues going away has been nice. I didn't have any bad breakouts, but the hives would always flare up whenever I was stressed or anxious, and of course they were always on my face and neck. I don't know how long it takes for all the synthetic crap to completely cycle out of the body, but I definitely feel a lot healthier mentally than I did a few months ago.