Whistle while you work

I've been pretty low for most of this week. On Sunday my partner's father informed us that he can't help pay our property taxes like he has done in the past, so we have three months to come up with the money, making it somewhere around five hundred dollars a month we have to somehow find to make the payment. Added to that, when I told him about my new self employment he laughed, saying that if I was going to inspire people to hire me to care for their gardens, I would first have to get mine in better shape, and to top things off, my partner's mother offered to pay me to work in my own garden.

I know what my partner's parents opinion of me is, and it's difficult for me not to share it, being that I haven't held down a long term job in more than twenty years, and that my depression had made it so that I couldn't even drum up the enthusiasm needed to take care of my responsibilities here at home. It's difficult for me not to feel like a failure when I've spent most of my life dependent on others, and especially so at this time, when every penny coming into this house is desperately needed.

What had felt like an accomplishment the week before, suddenly didn't measure up, and the pride I felt about having started my little enterprise and gaining a bit of independence from my partner seemed like something only a child should be proud of. All the steam had left me, and I went back to work on Monday feeling like I was working my ass off for nothing. By Tuesday evening I was exhausted, and feeling more than a little sorry for myself.

Even now as I write this I'm struggling to not let these thoughts bring me back down, but the reason I am writing this is not to wallow in my self pity. Thursday afternoon I went back to work and something miraculous happened. I found myself whistling again, ... and that's kind of big in it self, because I don't whistle very well at all. (Grin)

You see, I really do enjoy gardening, and seeing the results of my hard work. I took a few minutes break from my weeding and trimming that afternoon and looked around at what I had done, and it looked very good. There's something very satisfying about tackling the chaos of an overgrown garden and turning it back into something beautiful. I might not have taken a course, or know the latin names of the plants that I'm dealing with, but I have an instinct for it, and I do know what I am doing, and that can only improve with experience.

I'm conscientious, and I'm not afraid of hard work, and this is what I am offering to those who hire me. I just started this business, and even though I might not be raking in the money right now when it is needed, there's no telling what will come of this little venture of mine. It probably never will become a cash cow, but it should gain me a bit of financial independence from my partner. More importantly, it's reminded me of some things about myself that I admire, some very basic things that I had forgotten, and need to hang onto to maintain my self respect.

I was foolish to let someone else's opinion take that away from me after so recently regaining it, and I've made a promised to myself to do everything I can in the future not to let that happen again.

So today, instead of going back to working at that over grown garden, like I had planned, and to tell you the truth, I can't wait to get back at it, I went to visit a couple of prospective clients, a retired man who wants me to maintain his flower beds, not much, but it's good to line up something long term, and a woman who wants me to work for her tomorrow. The later was only suppose to be a couple of hours work, but because of my having popped in to see her today, she's already talking about having me come back to do more, and she hasn't even seen what I'm capable of yet. :)