Wednesday Stream of Consciousness

I’ve been thinking about chickens lately—what it would be like to own some, have a few running around the backyard, laying eggs, saving me $3.69 at the grocery store each week. It’s laughable, really. Me, the girl who can barely keep plants alive, wanting chickens. I’m not even an animal lover. Like, at all. I’ve been anti-pet for all of my adult life. Ask Brett, it’s a running joke in our house: me and my hollow heart, hardee har har. 

It’s not just the chickens. I crave a garden, too. One I will not kill, one I will have time to nurture and tend to and research. I want to grow things, care for things, put my hands in the dirt. Every time I get on Zillow (that is, every time I cannot write), I look at houses off the beaten path. Just for fun, I tell myself. It’s fun to dream about land, and space, and gardens, and chickens, and living a quiet little life. 

I don’t remember how the subject came up, but a few days ago on the way home from school, Carson said something about “getting fired.” And then Everett asked if I could get fired. It took me a second to register what he was asking, whether or not I could get fired from my job. The answer: no. Technically, I cannot get fired. Canceled, sure, but not fired. 

“Because you’re the boss?” he said.

“Something like that,” I replied. 

Yesterday one of my writers emailed me, letting me know she recently took a full-time job. She still wants to write for Coffee + Crumbs, but her schedule is changing and she won’t be as available. I certainly don’t need an explanation, but I appreciated the backstory and insight into why she took the job. She wrote, “I was exhausted … many days I had a difficult time functioning. I need structure and I need to accomplish things during the day, and I need someone to tell me what it is I'm supposed to do.”

She told me how much she loves getting dressed, working in an office, not thinking about social media, branding, platforms, etc for seven glorious hours a day. 

I couldn’t respond fast enough: I get it! I understand! Some days, I want that, too. 

A writer I love has a book coming out in a couple of weeks. She’s been on Instagram a lot more than usual, as one does when they have a book coming out. I’ve been studying her strategy—reading chapters out loud on video—taking notes. 

Roughly a year from now, the same will be expected of me. I already feel anxious, wary of all the talking, talking, talking. The marketing and podcasts and Instagram captions and emails. The yes, yes, yes, I’ll do that. Public speaking makes me nauseous. I dread being on video. I know so little about this industry and business, but this much I know for sure: even authors with quiet little lives must appear front and center when their books come out. 

I’m meeting with a designer this afternoon, two of five I have booked free calls with, to discuss the world of branding and logos and online identities. Late at night I whine to my husband about how terrible everything is. He reminds me: you’re doing it again. I know, I know. Every few years, I get like this. Every few years, I want to burn it all down. The logos, the website, the photos, all of it. My throat tightens while I look at design rates and packages. Does it really cost $4,000 for a new logo? I wish someone else could figure this out. 

I met the first designer over Zoom last week, a lovely woman, a mother herself. I attempted to explain what Coffee + Crumbs is, how this all started, how I never set out to “run a business”—how I just wanted to start a beautiful, collaborative blog about motherhood. I explained how things have shifted and evolved over time, how we’re growing up, how I want our website to reflect that. She asked me where I see myself in five years, and where I see the brand in five years. I stared at her with a blank look on my face, suddenly thinking about chickens again. 

I don’t know where I will be in five years. Will any of this exist in five years? My work has a shelf life, I know this, but I haven’t been given the expiration date yet.

Some days I feel like I’m nearing the end. Other days, I still see untapped potential. It’s kind of like our house, this sweet fixer-upper we’ve been working on for four years. Sometimes we talk about moving, but I can’t imagine moving before we restore the kitchen, replace the roof, get new bedroom doors. It feels wrong to fix 70% and then bounce. Don’t we owe the house enough to see it through? 

I feel the same about Coffee + Crumbs. On good days, there are still ideas swirling – possibilities, potential, artforms I haven’t explored yet but desperately want to. In the same breath, I cannot deny how tired I am. I have been making decisions, one after the other after the other, for almost eight straight years. Sometimes I wish someone else would tell me what to do. Sometimes I wish I wasn’t in charge of all these inboxes and spreadsheets and deadlines and budgets. 

Typing this out, I am aware of how pathetic and privileged this narrative is: girl conjures up dream job, complains about dream job, cry me a freaking river. I know. I know. And still. In the simple words of a writer I love, it’s a lot. The constant decision-making. Stewarding this much work each day. Managing, leading, absorbing a never-ending stream of feedback.

Sometimes I daydream about having a different job where I get dressed and go to an office and someone else tells me what to do. I think I would be good at a job like that. A job where I follow directions and get a paycheck and quietly do my work and mind my own business and no one pays attention to me. A job where I go home at 5pm to make dinner. A job that lives at the office, and not inside my brain. Then again, the grass is always greener on the other side. Once upon a time, I had that job. I wore a pencil skirt and high heels and worked in a cubicle, and I couldn’t stop dreaming about being a writer.

I don’t know how to reconcile all of this. What Coffee + Crumbs is becoming. Who I am becoming. What my writing is becoming. I don’t know how to reconcile that I am publishing a book next year, yet sometimes I dream of deleting Instagram forever and disappearing off the Internet and living a quiet little life. Is this really in my future? Or is this simply my own anxiety manifesting in escapism? Am I turning into Jonah? God’s been pretty clear about where He wants me right now, but dang, sometimes I just want to hop in a boat and sail away from all the responsibility. 

(It’s probably not a coincidence God wired me to barf on boats.)

In Atlas of the Heart, Brene Brown writes: “Language is our portal to meaning-making, connection, healing, learning, and self-awareness. Having access to the right words can open up entire universes. When we don’t have the language to talk about what we’re experiencing, our ability to make sense of what’s happening and share it with others is severely limited.”

Over the past several weeks, I have been feeling a number of things I have struggled to articulate. I’ve shared some rendition of the same sentiment with my husband, my mastermind group, my counselor: I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I cannot seem to pinpoint if I am struggling with anxiety, restlessness, burnout, overwhelm, regret, discouragement, WHAT IS IT. I don’t know. I still don’t know. I am working toward finding the language. 

Until then, I’m still here. Trying to remain faithful and obedient with a heart postured toward gratitude, occasionally still dreaming of chickens, of what it would be like to live a quiet little life.