 As of this weekend, I think I can officially say that I’m a badass, tattooed biker chick. Yes, ME … prim, proper and petite Amy.
Oh, stop yer laughing. Let me ‘splain. See, when my son was born in 1995, I was a mere babe myself, at 22 years old. His birth — quite expectedly and understandably — cut short what might have been my carefree 20s. My life became about diapers and developmental milestones, not The Dead summer tour. Or any other adventures, for that matter. I had to become a responsible adult but quick. When other girls my age were blowing their paychecks on cute shoes, I was trying to finish college, work full time AND make sure my infant son had all his needs met.
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 I’ve had a snarled ball of anxiety in my chest since last Wednesday. It’s rare that I get tied up in knots over anything these days. I’m more laid back than I’ve ever been in my whole life, which makes the issue that’s got me going nutty even more exasperating. It’s been effing with my serenity in a major way, and frankly, this will not stand, man.
What has got me all out of sorts, you ask? Well, the bane of my existence is a mandated, and very untimely, modification in my technological capabilities. In other words, I am being forced to change my e-mail address.  UofL champs with Ferdinand's Ball founders Something that’s really astonished me about my new freelance gig is the amount of interest I’ve had in my PR and media relations services.
See, when I first envisioned going out on my own, I assumed that my only marketable skill — y’know, the one that would make money — was my writing. I mean, hello? I am a trained print journalist, so this seems like a pretty natural conclusion, right? Yeah, I pictured myself in my home office, dressed in yoga pants and a ponytail, tippy-tapping away on my MacBook Pro keyboard, completing assignments for corporate marketing departments, advertising and web agencies, industry blogs and local publications.  It was almost exactly a year ago this week that the shizz finally hit the fan in my marriage after a long, painful build. I look back on that time in my life now and wonder how I survived it in one piece. My best guess is that it was a mixture of unwavering love and support from family and friends, my own tenacity and a healthy dose of grace. Whatever the recipe, I am so grateful to be where I am today.
I don’t want to disparage my ex unnecessarily, but there were moments last year when I felt like I was cast as the tortured lead in a trailer park soap opera. It would be an understatement to say that this little suburban white girl was not at all prepared for that particular brand of crazy.  If I had started this blog a few years ago, I would have used it as a venue to bitch and complain about all of the people, places and things that pissed me off. At the time, there was no shortage of all three.
Sure, my poisonous thinking might’ve produced some entertaining prose, but all that soul-sucking pessimism really accomplished was to feed my overall unhappiness. Today (thank God), the cynic in me is dead and buried, and I don’t want to use this space to resurrect her. My life is VERY good, and I attribute that primarily to an overwhelmingly positive attitude and an optimistic faith that everything, ultimately, will be OK. All that said, I have been dwelling on one particular nugget of negativity so much during the past few months that I’ve decided to write it down here in the hopes that I can finally LET. IT. GO.  I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the groundwork of starting and building a business. Understandable, since I’m kinda in the middle of the building part right now.
I’m pretty secure about the services I’m selling – the marketable skills of writing, editing and media relations consulting. But when it comes to the back-end of actually running a business that’s financially solvent and in legal compliance with the IRS and other government entities, I’m not quite as confident. |
About Amy HiggsA former newspaper columnist, Amy takes her random, slice-of-life stories to the web. After 12 years, she's still just saying. Archives
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