Yesterday morning, as I awoke and lay there in my bed, I immediately became overwhelmed. Just knowing that it was New Year's Eve, reflecting back on the difficulty of the year, I felt so heavy. Now, I’m sure part of the heaviness I felt was in my waistline, for I spared no donut last year. Seriously, though… Even now, as I sit at my desk on this first day of a fresh new year, I continue to feel… heavy.
One of the overarching themes in our marriage has been the struggle to become a single-income household. Our goal was to become parents within the first 5 years of marriage, at which point Mignon would retire. By then, I was expected to take on the full weight of our financial burdens. So, for those 5 years, my wife and I worked tirelessly and managed a very tight budget. I did whatever it took to ensure that, each year, I earned more money than I had the year before. Despite saving as much as I could, it eventually became clear that I would never accomplish my financial goals while working as a freelance musician.
In 2012, I stumbled upon a new line of work with the potential to solve our money problems. I began to work diligently as a government contractor, establishing myself as a top performer in my office. However, by the start of our 5th year of marriage, we remained unsure whether or not this new work was the answer we’d been looking for. The job required that I spend a lot of time on the road. The work was sporadic, and with long gaps between assignments.
Amid all of this uncertainty, we conceived our first child right on schedule. In June of 2013, our precious Calais was born. I accepted another long term assignment on the road shortly afterward. I was good at my job, and I was able to give Mignon the stay-at-home-mom status she had longed for. However, the travel and long hours took me completely out of the game in terms of a family life. Eventually the girls did join me on the road, and we were pretty happy for a little while.
In June 2014, my long term assignment on the road came to an end. We returned to Baton Rouge as a family, celebrated Calais’ 1st birthday and then tried to regroup. I hadn’t yet given up on returning to the road, but I secretly hoped that I would be forced to stay at home. Opportunities became scarce and I had little choice but to pick up some local construction work here in Louisiana. By the end of 2014, that job ended as well, and I found myself back at square one. With no offers on the table, it appeared that disaster recovery work had been merely a stopgap measure - not sustainable for the long term. What followed has been my greatest trial yet.
I’ll save the whole story of how I decided to launch Alder Grove Films for another post. What I will say is that, in times of trouble, you find out who your friends are. It’s absolutely staggering what happens when relationships get tested, and the quickest way to do this is to bring business or money into the picture. I generally steer away from black and white thinking. I’m going to make an exception in this case, and say that the people in my life seemed to very quickly form up into 2 lines: The short line being those who believed in and supported us, and the long one being those who seemed to be completely indifferent to our struggles, to the point that I wondered if some folks were actually rooting for us to fail.
It’s not all doom and gloom, though. True, I’m very disappointed in some people, but I am equally inspired by those who have been there for us in our time of need. In an effort to grow my business, I have made some decisions recently that a lot of folks just wouldn’t understand. I’ve turned down not one, but two 6-figure job offers from New York. I’m also selling my home in order to get small while I develop my company further.
Since our house goes on the market this week, I had really wanted to write a thoughtful blog post about my “Last Christmas in Pin Oak”, and maybe buttress it with a really beautiful video. In fact, I actually spent several hours over the course of a few days writing and filming a message to commemorate the occasion.
However, during the last 2-3 weeks leading up to Christmas, something unexpected happened. Two or three clients approached me to complete projects for them in time for January. I also launched a new acoustic music show right before Christmas, so I had a lot of material to learn for that. It was a much needed influx of work, and it kept me so busy that I didn’t really have time to focus on our last holiday season here. I am a little sad about not being able to finish and release “Last Christmas in Pin Oak”, but I know it was for the best.
Anyway, I’ve decided to stay here in South Louisiana, to invest myself into long term stability and success by any means necessary, starting in 2016. Who’s with me?!