It can be tough getting all these leading questions and comments. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
“So, are you getting TONS of shoe orders lately?” <\/p>\n\n\n\n
“It seems like your business is BOOMING!” <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I have to laugh them off and reply that no, I haven’t been getting tons of orders. I would not characterize my resole business as “booming.” Obviously, I appreciate the enthusiasm and the support, but I also have to swallow a lump in my throat. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Look, if I had a dollar for every time someone has said to me, “I’ve got at least a couple pairs of shoes for you to resole,” I’d probably have, well … the cost of a resole. Like $50. I launched the resoling business a few months ago, but after a pretty steady influx of shoes, it’s gotten slow. I know people have <\/em>shoes. The difficulty is getting those shoes into my hands. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I can’t say I’ve been trying all that hard to get said shoes into my hands, though. The reality is, after grinding at 3+ jobs for 10 months, I sort of hit a wall. As the shoes dwindled, I welcomed the free time. Apart from a few days with family in New York and a bachelorette weekend, I didn’t really have a summer. So, I made fall my new “summer.” I’ve soaked up these precious last days outside in comfortable weather. I’ve chipped away at my summer bucket list. And I’ve faced the tragic fact of adulthood: life is a lot more fun when you don’t work. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The last month or so has been every bit of what Matthew McConaughey calls “LIVIN.” I’ve gone climbing with new and old friends, in and outdoors. Bike riding. Catching up with a coworker over pie. I ran a marathon in New Hampshire, surrounded by so many loved ones — two sets of aunts and uncles, my parents, two middle school friends, a college friend, and two dachshunds. I returned to Colorado and immediately made plans. Three girlfriends want to trail run to a cantina for margs? Yes. Let me take another friend out to Fairplay and we’ll stay at my family’s cabin, hike around. Why not hike a fourteener with my best buddy Zach? <\/p>\n\n\n\n I got a bloody nose taking a literal sip of whiskey at my friends’ pumpkin party. I saw my favorite band for the 11th time, and they played 21 songs! I watched my friend send a 5.13b on his second try. I got last-minute tickets to a show at Red Rocks, and it left my jaw on the floor for two hours straight. I’d put it in the top 5 shows I’ve ever been to — and I’ve been to a LOT of shows. Just when I thought I’d had enough, I went to a local show in town to see friends play, and had just as much as fun — in back-to-back nights. <\/p>\n\n\n\n During that Red Rocks show (Parcels), I turned to my friend Josh and said, “This is the kind of thing that reminds you why you’re ALIVE.” So many of these experiences in the past month have invigorated me because I feel like I’m LIVIN, when the past 10 months, all I’ve done is work to live. Moreover, they’ve been invigorating because they’ve been so spontaneous, unexpected. The way life should be. Not some boring routine that you rinse and recycle. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I know it’s not sustainable to push my business to the side. I’m no stranger to the grind, and I will of course get back at it. But it has been so refreshing to not<\/em> stress about it for just a moment. I’ve told people that in many ways, I feel like I’ve already won. I built a freaking resole business out of nothing in 8 months. Sure, there are many times I still have no idea what I’m doing. (I was a psychology major. Nobody taught me about sales tax licenses or bookkeeping.) But I am learning constantly regardless. I’m building ad campaigns and designing graphics; I’m brainstorming all the time. Even though I’m not buried in shoes, I’m no failure. I had the guts to try this whole dang thing in the first place. <\/p>\n\n\n\n “I haven’t gotten a lot of shoes lately, but instead of working on marketing, I’ve just been goofing off,” I told my family friend, John, on the phone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Yeah, I’m sure when you look back five years from now, you’re really going to regret taking some time off to have some fun,” he responded sarcastically. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Geez, I really hope not. Then future Sarah really<\/em> isn’t LIVIN.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It can be tough getting all these leading questions and comments. “So, are you getting TONS of shoe orders lately?” “It seems like your business is BOOMING!” I have to laugh them off and reply […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2522","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ponderings","category-rsr"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/excrcl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2522","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/excrcl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/excrcl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/excrcl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/excrcl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2522"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/excrcl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2522\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2525,"href":"https:\/\/excrcl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2522\/revisions\/2525"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/excrcl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2522"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/excrcl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2522"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/excrcl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2522"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}