Years ago I had a wonderful friend named Pixie Jen who ran her own bookstore. I remember talking with her at the time about her worry the store was going to close. To be honest I suspected that she was right, it was in a terrible location, and it serviced a small clientele, and she didn’t have a ton of money to bring people through the door.
For a lot of reasons the store ended up closing not long after that conversation, but rather than tell her that I was sure business would pick up, I told her that no matter what happened she was going to be fine.
Spending the hours I did in that store, in a very real way saved my life. It gave me a place to go where I could hide out from the world for a few hours, a place that I could go to escape the drama and sorrow in my life. And although I never had enough money to spend, I always felt welcome, and I am honestly grateful for the level of sanctuary that Jen was able to provide myself and her other customers.
The store did eventually close, and I lost touch with Pixie Jen, which is a damned fine shame, but I take the memory of Grimore’s Books wherever I go, because Jen taught me the importance of being the kind of person who others could feel safe around.
I know how safe she made me feel, and I know how much that much have taxed on her knowing that she was going to lose her store. The point is, even if something doesn’t succeed for as long as you want it to, there is absolutely zero point in giving up without giving it a try.
Because of Jen I learned to start setting boundaries in my life. I learned how to start saying no to men who touched me inappropriately or said things that I wasn’t comfortable with.
Because of Jen, I learned how to stand up for myself.
It’s purely because she opened a store in a shit location, that I was eventually brought to her, so that I could discuss the problems of my life with someone who was willing to listen, who helped me work out a lot of the shit that I was experiencing.
If she hadn’t opened her store exactly where she did, I probably wouldn’t have spent as much time in the store, and I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to get to know her, or to share much of myself, the way that I did.
Had I not done that, I wouldn’t have discovered the need to find my own voice and to stand up for myself. Had that not happened, and on and on and on it goes, I wouldn’t be here today, telling you to stop letting other people invade your vision.
I know Jen didn’t want her store to close, but to my mind, it absolutely served it’s purpose for the length of time that those of us who shopped and hung out there needed it.
I know of another Witch who wrote the dictionary version of what it means to be a Witch. I actually was gifted a copy of her unpublished book, not by the author, but by Jen herself, who told me that I should keep it after it was left by Jen’s “student” at my house.
Your vision doesn’t have to be perfect, it doesn’t have to be refined right away, it just has to be something that you can see becoming a reality.
I honestly have no idea what I am doing when it comes to the “business” side of LMBG, but I am learning as I go. Every step that I take is about learning how to do things better than I did them the day before.
Sure the risks that I am taking with this website are less than say, opening my own store, but the idea of the vision is the same. Success is determined based on what your goals are, and where you want to go.
For me success as far as this website goes, is determined by how much closer I am to my goal of hiring writers than I was yesterday. Everything that I am doing right now is about accomplishing that goal.
The more that I write, create, and network, the more opportunities I am going to have to invite people to blog on my website. The same goes for any industry. Yes you’re going to have days where you think that you suck and should give up, but those aren’t the days that matter.
The days that matter are the ones that are filled with you getting the work done, the ones when you go to bed feeling good about yourself, because you know you’ve put a good hard days work in and you’ve made your time at the moment matter.
What matters is that when you sit down to do the work, or stand as the case may be, you feel good about the work that you are putting out there into the world.
Do what you do, the way that only you can. God bless you, because you are the innovators of tomorrow.
Sending all my love ,
Devon J Hall
Loud Mouth Brown Girl 