I nearly died last week. I keep telling that to myself. Sometimes in absolute euphoria, sometimes it just catches me again while I am sipping on a cuppa. But every time it hits me like a wall that this whole adventure I am on called life could have been over, and I wouldn’t have even realised it. During my recovery the world has been glaring out to me in technicolour through the window. HERE I AM. TAKE FULL ADVANTAGE.
The ironic thing is BEFORE my operation, which was only for elective gallbladder removal, I had been feeling so poorly for long. It had been effecting so many parts of my life without even REALISING it. The lack of energy, the daily pain, the absolute embarrassment of food not digesting properly, of being malnourished despite piling on the pounds at an uncontrollable rate, my body swelling with water retention from infection, my skin slowly turning yellow and my hair falling out as the undiagnosed chronic pancreatitis ravaged my body and my infected gallbladder dripped poison into my blood stream., the chronic head aches, the broken sleep. I didn’t realise these things were happening to me. I had been brought up to “keep going” “no moaning” “suck it up” - It had just become my reality. Dragging myself up to “show up” in the ablest BS world we live in. Because THAT IS WHAT PEOPLE DO RIGHT? We get up to work, to feed the machine that never isn’t hungry. The most frightening part now is I was very, VERY close to cancelling the surgery. How on EARTH can a self employed person take time off? The business was already suffering for many reasons, yes price increases, yes all the other stuff the media like to feed us on a constant doom roll. But mainly because of me, because I just did not have the energy to drag myself there, stand in an empty shop in pain and perform anymore. I really couldn’t understand why. My WHY for getting up in the morning and following the dream had gone. There was absolutely no benefit other than chatting with my lovely customers, sometimes standing there feeling like I was going to collapse, the room spinning around their lovely faces - it kept me grounded, focused, and willing to get up and do it again the next day. MAKE THE STUFF. The morning of my operation I had actually sent my landlords notice to quit. I just couldn’t do it anymore.
I didn’t tell anyone how unwell I was feeling, although since my operation many friends and family have said my face has changed and somehow I am standing taller - the pain has gone.
I nearly died last week .
Coming home although my body was sore my mind was suddenly awake. More awake than I have felt in years. I was struck with the absolute power of 1,000,000 feel good gurus to get stuff done. The panic when I remembered I had decided to close the business, thankfully my landlords hadn’t even got around to reading the email I had sent. That was easily solved, but the next step was to quickly, from my bed, orchestrate the rebirth of Lil’s Parlour. To get done something I knew I should have done years and years ago. I was just too tired, too unwell to do it before.
In one week I have launched our Community Interest Company. For now on I am working towards people, not profits. I have launched a Crowdfunder to go along with it. This is, the last shot at making this work, I am firing on all cylinders, still from bed to make this happen. I am not playing small anymore. It feels very uncomfortable to ask for help, sadly they didn’t take out my low self esteem with my gallbladder (mores the pity). I have so many good things to do, so much more to achieve and now I am confident I have the energy and wellbeing back to go alongside all the usual things it takes to run a business.
I guess in conclusion what I am trying to say is this. If you have seen my crowdfunder and maybe not pledged because in the past my opening hours have been sporadic, I haven’t been able to to markets and outside events, even when I knew I had to because I had zero energy, I have come on social media acting like everything was amazing when that really wasn’t the case (it really really hasn’t been the case). I feel like I have been slowly letting the business down. I have been “humanning” on 50% for a couple of years and I didn’t even know it.
It’s an “all or nothing” campaign and honestly those three words are more impactful than ever at the moment. This really is all or nothing time for me and the future of Lil’s Parlour. I am adding some really lovely new rewards in the next couple of days so keep your eyes peeled for those.
The future is so bright, I have so many things to achieve, so much good to do, and I hope coming on here and writing these words will help you understand the motivation of another human to move forward so quickly even in difficult circumstances. I’m back to firing on all cylinders and to be honest I don’t think many of you have actually seen that before.
I nearly died last week, but I didn’t. To the future!
Lucy x
As a side note - thank you to our wonderful NHS for saving my life! Literally. If you are having weird aches, pains PLEASE don’t be like me. Don’t carry on - get it looked at before it’s ruining your life!!!!