Update at the End of Year...

I know it's been a while since I really updated folks.  It's been one really tough year.  It's hard to know what to say without coming across as either self-pitying or whining.  So, I've not really found a good angle to find a way to update folks.

For those who have been following along, the business is gone.  It flirted with disaster so very many times that I thought maybe it could survive anything.  Turns out it couldn't survive a divorce-inspired injunction, 3 straight years of unseasonably mild weather, the global economic downturn and overall changes in the industry and within my franchise system.

I miss being a business owner.  Miss it terribly.  But I don't miss that business.  There were a lot of changes in the 8 years I was involved and none of them were positive, in my opinion.  The business got harder every year.  The franchisor made life harder every year.  So, in the end, there is actually part of me that is glad that the injunction kept me from being able to save it.

The rest of me isn't so happy, but part of me is.  So, I'll take it.

I also got a job almost immediately after the business concluded operations.  It was a hassle trying to liquidate the business while starting a new job, but it's done.  It dawned on me the other day that I have gone three straight decades, since I shipped off to the Army when I was 17, without ever really being unemployed.

The other day, I was writing out my life plan and immediately felt better when I wrote "start another business" as a to-do item sometime in the undetermined future.  I honestly felt relief.  My old business is gone, but it's not like I can't ever have another one.  It basically took me 13 years of working to save enough to buy that business.  I should be able to do it again much more quickly this time.  Maybe seven years.  Who knows.

I really don't like the location of my job.  Working in Dayton sucks for me.  I spend the week down there, and a random weeknight and every weekend up here to be with my boy.  Also, it doesn't look like it will be possible to finish law school.  If I were in Cleveland, Akron or Toledo, those all have night law programs.  Capital University has a night school, but it's very expensive and still over an hour away from Dayton.  Not impossible, but I'm already so exhausted most of the time, I can't imagine adding night school and a 2 hour round-trip commute to the mix.

In a way, though, the one year of law school I did at Toledo wasn't wasted.  It helped me get the job I have, now.

The rest of my life?  It's an overwhelming mess at the moment, but things will get better.  2012 was a really rough year.  Started off sorta bad and got worse almost every day.  So, here I am, middle aged, and rebuilding.  It'll happen.  It'll just take time.