Pensee du jour

I'm on top of the world agaaaaaain

The long journey

Yep I am the slowest blogger in the world. Since my birthday things have not stopped at all. Being in the bicycle industry made me think I would have some quiet months when the Irish weather would settle in. Nope! We had a proper Christmas rush and had to move to bigger premises only 9 months after the first shop opened. Meanwhile I met a wonderful bike mechanic who has been working with me since then, and for me since this morning (yes I am a ruthless capitalist now, I am the boss!) of course this is very scary, what if my business doesn't work as well in the future? What if I have to let my guy go? When will I be able to pay myself a decent salary? All these questions can be head wrecking at times (especially when I meet my accountant, who stresses so much on how to be a good manager with money), but most of the time it is motivating, thrilling, rewarding, and yes, very tiring. Not counting the hours, being the one everyone is counting on for anything, getting to learn new things in 10 minutes to be able to convince funders, all this can be a bit draining.

But I do compare my life now to what it was a year ago and I have to say I am so happy the way things turned out. I am not shouting victory yet, but it seems my business is going sustainable and that I'll be able to pay myself properly in a few months, and that my personal life is getting better too. Love is in the air!

Taking risks is the lesson of this past year. Not being afraid of making clear cuts and moving forward is also an important lesson. I shall keep you posted on all this, but I have to say 2010 started damn well!

30

Here I am! I am crossing the line. Because the past year has been quite difficult and eventful and that it coincides with me reaching the 30 number, I have been thinking quite a lot about the past 10 years. I have to say, I am pleased.

10 years ago, I was celebrating my 20th birthday around a frozen lake in Sweden. Two dear friends of mine had bought food and booze and we got drunk in the cold, in a very enchanting forest that was surrounding the campus of Vaxjo University. I was in the middle of a degree in political science and was about to meet the first love of my life. I had already met my very close friends in college, and those ones are still around, 10/12 years on. The following years were about graduating and trying to figure out what the f**** I wanted to do with my life. After that, it was mostly about collecting a number of very lousy jobs: data collection about Viagra, factory working, sales by telephone, receptionist in a shitty shop (for the ones in France), apple picking (Sweden), customer service, administrative assistant, accounts assistant, PA, data entry (Ireland).

Travels were so important during this decade. I went back and forth to Sweden, visited most of Europe, discovered Japan, Mexico, discovered the midnight sun, ate grasshoppers (Mexico), rotten fish (Sweden), contracted the turista, cycled during weeks in France, got sunburned, got blisters, got lost (a lot), met beautiful people.

I did quite a lot of silly things: organised a (fake) sex group on a football field, spent hours in a computer room trying to figure out how the Internet was working (yes people, at this stage, modems with telephone lines were the rule), lost my apartment keys in 2 metres of snow and had to wait for spring to get them back, lost an unbelievable amount of phones, got sick in taxis, vomited in public places and on my school director's shoes, kissed an unbelievable amount of guys, got drunk a lot, tried drugs, walked home unconscious in the middle of the night (well I still do that though), got drunk because of guys (still do it too), quit jobs and found myself penniless, had to get invited to friends places because I was too broke to buy food, disappointed a couple of people (mostly friends I was not very frank with)...

I learnt a lot: languages, bike repair, accountancy software, how to use a mobile phone (same stuff as for the Internet, the first phone was the size of my hand and the screen was black and white) and also lessons of life. The good people are worth a little bit of sacrifice, the ones not worth it are just to be left on the side, boys are stupid (I sense Julien's comment there), relationships complicated, psychotherapy works, my family is wonderful and religions are definitely not something I am attracted to.

In ten years, I had two important boyfriends, met amazing people (charity workers, my volunteers...), got disappointed, hurt, felt love as never before, I confirmed my feminism, got very militant and then less, my political opinions got softer and more reasonable.

In brief, it was good!