I've talked about this before, my struggles among the things I want to do, the things I need to do and the things I have to do.
On any given day, I may want to experiment in the kitchen, but I need to fill the case, and usually, I have to fill a custom order.
And this sounds like the most obnoxious complaint ever, but it's frustrating. I AM THE MOST ANNOYING PERSON EVER, I realize this.
I'm whining because OMG, I have customers. And they want me to make them the things that they want.
I feel as if every day is a battle. A battle of the want/need/have.
But really it's a battle of me. The battle going on in my brain. The place where all the problems seem to happen.
My business has grown. It's amazing and at times, awe-inspriring. I mean, when I step outside of myself and what I've built, I think, holy crap, that's a lot of cupcakes, cakes and pies that I've made over the last year.
When you start a company with a 4,400 cookie order, you've set the bar very, very high. So when someone asks for 900 cookies or 800 muffins, you don't really bat an eyelash. Or at least I don't.
And maybe that's the problem. I think I can do too much.
Lately, I've had a few complaints. Seriously, a few. Like three. Which brings my grand total of complaints to like 7. Total for over a year. That's like less than one percent fail rate.
But all i see is FAIL.
It made me spend the weekend on emotional high alert. Like super tense. I hold stress in my core and it ultimately makes my back ache and my stomach hurt. I feel as if I can't breath. I have to force myself to take deep breathes and let them out. I was afraid at every turn that I was going to bump into a bad review or get a complaint via email or a phone call. Nothing ever happened.
Thursday was a rough day. Actually, rough does not begin to describe what Thursday was. Thursday was a turd sandwich thrown at me by an angry clown (singing a Taylor Swift song on repeat).
In retrospect, I don't know what made Thursday become THURSDAY, but it was. A culmination of yet another no-show interview on Tuesday, paired with a long day of wedding cake tastings on Wednesday made me not want to open on Thursday, so, I didn't.
And I knew this would eventually bite me in the butt. Sure enough, a woman calls me wanting to know why my sign says closed when my hours say that I should be open. I explain that my employee had not made it in yet. She says that she wants to place an order for tomorrow. I tell her that we don't take next day orders, so it doesn't matter. She says she just wants cupcakes, so come open the door.
FINE.
I go open the door. I'm NOT in a good mood. And this lady in the Range Rover is not making it any better. She proceeds to ask me what the favorite flavor is (she's never been here before), and I tell her that's a complicated question. She then asks me if I do mini cupcakes and that she wants those. I tell her that would be a custom order, so, no. She gets mad and leaves.
I return to baking where I become increasingly irritated to the point that I begin to give myself a migraine. I decide to call my therapist, because the last few sessions I've had, I've been in a good mood and he mistakenly believes that I am an emotionally stable person. And as I sit on the floor crying over a drill after having smashed an entire tray of macarons that failed, I am clearly not.
So I left where I ended up puking into the trash can in my therapists office. Which, incidentally, is just not something I ever want to experience again. I ultimately spent the remainder of the afternoon in bed, lamenting how behind I was going to be the next day.
I'm trying to change the me. But I've found that even though I think I roll with the punches, I clearly do not. Change does not come easily to me. I tend to think I have everything figured out. And I do, right up until the moment when things blow up in my face and I'm forced to see that I need to do something different.
And I simply can not stress how difficult this is for me. To adapt. To change. And to not bitch about it. (so I'm completely failing on that last front).
Brad thinks that the change needs to come in my processes at the bakery- he wants me to freeze my cake. And I refuse. I don't want to be the 'frozen bakery.' and really, I would still end up with a pile up of cakes on Friday when I begin decorating. He thinks I should use short cuts, and again, I don't want to. I like that everything is made from scratch and that it's all fresh. But this method is exhausting for me. And I know that mentally and physically I am at my breaking point. I know that I need help. And I've tried to find good help to no avail.
So without someone to lean on, I will have to learn how to lean on myself more than I already do.
