There is a lot of folk lore around acorns.
They stand for strength, dedication, perseverance. They are harbingers of good luck. They speak to commitment and hope. That’s a lot of power in a tiny seed with a hat.
There have been many things in my life that I have committed to. It’s something I take so seriously that it probably borders on the annoying for those around me. When I give my word, I’ll do everything in my power to keep it. When I’m in a relationship, or start a project, I fall into it head first and sometimes lose myself completely. That’s happened a lot in the past few years.
My Disney project was something that started out so innocently that I couldn’t imagine what was to come. Honestly, I just wanted to show how the parks had influenced my love of art and imagination from as far back as I can remember. I wanted people to remember that there was so much before insane commercial focus…that there was such sweet magical quality to everything in the early days. (Except that thing where something always had to die…a parent, a pet…something that would always make me cry. I get it now, but wow, that’s tough when you’re a kid. But, it made you FEEL.)
Fast forward a year later and I had lost all sense of this being a fun little thing. I had created over a hundred products, an entire store. And had lost much of my own creativity in the process. There’s something weird that happens when you are constantly trying to recreate what someone else has done. Then look for approval for that piece…all while competing with hundreds of others doing the same thing. It kind of kills the love of it all.
But the store did open….thanks to much help from my partner, and hundreds of hours of work on design. I had a week of giveaways, and I was so excited to just be able to move forward from the initial stages of the process. Then I began to get feedback about the quality of the products. (I had never used anything like that before. I liked to know what was going out with my name on it, so I did it myself.) Then the virus hit and the world stopped. The good products that I had kept were no longer available. Things were there and gone sporadically. I was getting emails daily telling me that I had to make substitutions, or remove the product completely. It was a nightmare. So I closed it.
Then I just didn’t know how to keep going on social. I was told some pretty terrible things. That it all had been just playing. That I was wasn’t being responsible. That I wasn’t taking it seriously. The people that I trusted for opinions were saying that I needed new sources for products. It was huge and terrifying and I was in way over my head. All while the world was going insane.
yay.
When things finally became available again, and it felt like it could be trusted, I didn’t have help with either the website or the store any longer, and I was completely lost. I’ve been afraid to touch any of this for a long time because I was afraid I would break it. (I hear “excuses…just excuses” playing over and over in my head.)
It’s not a small thing to have the people in your life see you as a failure. It’s not a small thing to walk into something with so much excitement and have it become the source of your embarrassment and shame. And it’s not a small thing to try to figure it out alone after having only half the initial input.
So here I am. I thought I had an acorn. Maybe I do…just not the one I had thought. So I’m working on putting the pieces back together and seeing if I can begin to help something actually sprout. (mixing metaphors a bit there, sorry.)
Wishing you a wonderful day. I’ll see you over on the socials. ( Bit's of Magic or Collections)
There is more to come. I thought I had given up, but I realized that sometimes that’s exactly what people want…to see you fail. I’m going to let them decide what kind of people they want to be, that’s on them.
I’m going to decide who I am as well.
xo