How did I get here?

Never have I ever wanted to be the boss.

I don't want to have people looking at me for things to do. I don't dream of an orderly shop, buzzing with customers and employees.

If anything, I wanted a sleepy little bookstore where people could curl up and read away. (I figured I would have to have won the lottery, because that's not making any money) I'm a strongly solitary introvert, who once went 3 months outside of work, with out speaking to a single person besides my husband. And only noticed afterwards. It was very relaxing.

I wanted to go to work, do a job and come home. I want to leave work problems at work. Why should I bring those problems home? What's so wrong with that?

I don't want to work at what I love. Make it work and sooner or later I'll hate what I used to love. I made some earrings for my mother once. She thought it was awesome. Wanted me to sell them. I told her I couldn't make that many of them. She suggested an assembly line, with her and my sister to help. I thought about it for about 5 minutes. I hated it. I take joy in the creation of each and every single piece of anything I make. An assembly line has no joy. Her pleasure is in the selling.

Someone please tell me how I got here.

I run a shop. A small, orderly shop, buzzing with customers and employees. Looking at me and asking me where's this, where's that? Is this in? What should I do now? Wasn't it a great day? So many people!

I haven't had a day off since early May. I've had a violent case of poison sumac, a cold, a pulled muscle in my shoulder and very little sleep since then. I've hired 2 people. And a landscaping service. I'm about to hire a maid too. And a plumber. Because it's hard to garden and do the outdoor plumbing work at 9pm. I have to make a doctor's appointment, but my doctor has no office hours before I need to go to work. She also leaves the office before I'm finished.

I spend 70-75 hours each week at the shop. I sleep around 4 1/2 hours every night.

And I'm tired.

BTW, I know exactly how I got here. My mom asked for help running the shop she started. And I said sure. Then she said, here, it's all yours!

And I smiled. Said, thank you, that's great.

Doesn't mean I'm not tired.