I would stare at my computer screen with the most bewildered look on my face. I has absolutely no clue what I was doing and no idea how to change it. I wanted to learn…I needed help…but I had no idea where to start. Most days this ended with me curled up in a ball on the couch because I was giving up. I lost count of the number of times I gave up. But after a small pity party I would drag myself back into my office and start again. Millions of shoes are made every day on this planet and surely…SURELY I could figure out how to make mine.
The saying ‘two steps forward, one step back‘ doesn’t even begin to describe it. It was more like crawling up a hill made of ice as slow as humanly possible and periodically sliding back to the bottom for no apparent reason. Bottom line…figuring out how to manufacture a line of shoes is FREAKING HARD!!!!!! Right when I would think I had it figured out something would come out of left field and I would be right back at the beginning. And as much as I hate to admit it…the majority of the time I thought this little dream was never going to happen.
Well friends…I am here to tell you that dreams do come true and the hardest things in life are definitely the most rewarding. Last week I got an email from our manufacturer with pictures of our baby coming to life. I knew this was happening…I knew the schedule and when they were going into mass production. I knew he was going to send me pictures. But when I opened that email and saw the countless hours of hard work and doubt staring at me in the form of a blue, sparkly shoe I almost cried. It was happening. The shoes were being made and this crazy dream that started as a way to make chemo less awful was all the sudden so incredibly real.
To anyone out there who is feeling exactly like I did…I promise you it’s worth it. Go curl up in a ball…give up. But then get back up and start again. Because there is no greater feeling than knowing you did something you thought was impossible.
by laurenwakefield