Friday, the end of my first week on the Enterprise Year.
I started off my week telling people that I wanted to have a business making dolls, two days later I knew one thing, I’m not spending the year making dolls.
Just as a supermarket wouldn’t describe themselves as a milk seller, what I want to do is so much more than doll making, but what exactly?
In between talks about managing my time, being creative, even a trip to a pipe cleaning business I’ve been trying to sum up what exactly I want this business of mine to do/be. Listening to people talk about their own business ideas, and success stories, slowly getting ideas in my own mind and then BANG!
Like a marathon runner hitting a wall on the 23rd mile, I hit my wall on Wednesday evening.
Not so much a physical wall, rather a feeling that my head was full. I’d heard enough and couldn’t take in one more single piece of information. So I went to bed.
I’ve said before that I’m a voice hearer, which means (at least for me) that having to concentrate on one person talking is really difficult. That’s why I usually have my knitting with me, it distracts the inner voices enough for me to concentrate. But being in a new environment I wasn’t sure how people would react to me knitting while they spoke about their love and passion for their business, so I didn’t knit, and it was terrible.
By Wednesday night I had had enough, I needed rest, and yet, lying in bed I was wide awake. At 1am, I got up went into the kitchen looked in the fridge, then got back in bed. 2am, I opened the window to let some fresh air in. 3am I closed the window because a neighbour had worried me with tales of being robbed. 4am, I turn audible on and listened to a travel book. At 4.30am I woke (yep, I fell asleep) with an idea for business, I wrote it down then tried to sleep again, at 5am I began my swearing stage where the cat sat patiently listening to my rendition of “Why can’t I get the £&$% to sleep?”
Thursday was a tired nightmare, I was the nightmare to those around me, although my idea of what to do with a pipe cleaner was one of the winners and I got a £25 Amazon voucher.
I really need to get my knitting out… I really need to bite the bullet and let the other people know I might knit while they are talking and please don’t think it’s because I’m not interested.
This morning I woke feeling a little deflated. Still a lot of things camping in my brain, but the worst was the feelings that I couldn’t do this. I looked on Facebook, not my usual routine but someone had shared a video called Things people with Down’s Syndrome are tired of hearing. I suggest you have a watch.
The comment I loved is just one minute in. A mother with a young child answering the question, Will she be able to do things?
“Yes, she’ll be able to do everything, it’s just we’ll take the scenic route”
And so, I started my day, still a bit tired, getting a migraine, feeling like screaming or running, wanting to work away from people for a while, wishing the open office had more walls, needing to find ways to work in an environment that makes me feel paranoid, knowing that I need to find ways to work that complement my mental illness rather than destroy my passion… looking for the scenic route.
Betty Virago 