I’ve been saying forever now that I would start blogging to document my entrepreneur journey. TADAY is that day. I’m ready. I wasn’t sure if I would document some of this because it’s not pleasant, it’s not fun, it’s not part of the pretty picture that entrepreneurs want to paint. It’s the unfiltered pic with the weird face in your phone that you want to delete and never want the world to see.

I’m not sure when I got HERE... but maybe things have been getting to this place for some time now and I didn’t even see it hitting me, until BAM!, life slaps you in the face. In the last 2 months, I lost my immediate staff for my small business, forced to move and relocate my home and my son might be failing kindergarten. Bruh, how did we get HERE? You know the part that hurts the most is my son not doing well in school, that part hurts. And as I sit here and he’s engulfed in bullshit on YouTube, it makes sense how I got HERE.

2019 started and I was recovering from a bad breakup. Life. I decided to pay attention to me and be committed to my health. So I didn’t focus on just getting this waist snatched, but my mental health was important as well.

Post the robbery, I was having terrible anxiety and just not in a great mental space. Hence my On my way! to therapy, brb MESSage. I started going to therapy at least 2x’s a month and it has been helpful. Paired with working out and running, I became a new person! I haven’t felt mentally stronger. But then shit around me started to crumble.

I moved into a home in September 2018. I saw a house for sale, knocked on the door, the owner happened to be home and I handed over a duffle bag (put your shit in your bag and just go) and said I wanted to live here, and they said YES. It was contingent on me finalizing all the paper work and officially buying the home in 1 year. I moved into a beautiful pre-1950’s 3600 sqft home. I was in love and needed this home to transition. My single mother self really didn’t need this BIG of a home but like my Jamaican grandmother always said, my eyes are bigger than my stomach and it was a LOT to swallow (pause).

I was hypnotized by the big back yard, the 3 stories, the beautiful walk-in closet and the unique architecture of the home. The back story is I lived in a beautiful row home in Baltimore for 5 years in a neighborhood that was infested with drugs. I mean infested! Someone was killed in my back yard and they sold drugs a couple feet away from my stoop. My son wasn’t able to play outside with fears of a shoot out or a drug transaction gone bad. Plus I was growing a business and we would get hundreds of big boxes delivered so I figured it was only due time that the local drug dealers would think I was importing keys and run in my home and rob me. I had to move.

The neighborhood was DISGUSTING! It got worse over the years. Rodents, drugs and neighbors who just didn’t give a fuck. It started to fuck with my creativity. I didn’t want to be home. I couldn’t think much or less work. Being an entrepreneur (who don’t have all my shit together) restricted me from having all the appropriate documents to move freely. I felt stuck. Where was I going to go?

I drove around a neighborhood in Baltimore that was quiet and the total opposite of where I was currently living and created the opportunity I desperately needed. In the last 9 months, I worked my tail off. When I tell you worked, I worked. I did the work! I worked so hard that I was home only a couple weekends out of the 9 months I lived here. I didn’t even enjoy the home.

Then it happened. My son broke his leg, my employees quit and I was drowning financially. All of that hit me like a ton of bricks. I took on so much responsibility in such a short period of time and I was feeling the burn. I went back to doing all the orders by myself with no help.

It ultimately led to shutting down my business temporarily (you probably didn’t even notice) and now moving out the home into a smaller, MUCH SMALLER townhouse in the same neighborhood. I was a bit crushed and still trying to figure out how I got HERE. As entrepreneurs it’s not easy trying to create and SUSTAIN a living. I have no magical paycheck that appears biweekly even if I don’t work. So today, as I am stronger, wiser and adapting, I realize the blessings that I’ve received in the last 2 months. I needed new staff. I need a smaller space. I need to focus on my son and his education. I need to get financially stable. I need to continue to take care of me. And lastly, I need not to be ashamed of my journey. This life and it’s yours. It’s not a pretty picture for social media. This is the messy middle no one tells you about. Don’t let the hype of the noise prevent you from hearing the lessons in life you really need to hear.

As I embark on a new journey and fit all of my belongings into a home half the size, I am reminded that I am an amazingly, strong, bad ass, and I bend but won’t break. New beginnings are often disguised as painful endings... but in reality, I am right where I am supposed to be.