So... where was I?

Wow... it feels like things are starting to come together. I cannot stress enough how important it is to avoid the Doe in the Headlights maneuver during the whole "Making Your Dreams Happen" thing... Yesterday, those headlights stopped in me in my tracks for a brief moment. I am still not getting fully funded until maybe next week (which I've known all along). I have two tons of stuff to do that costs money AND worst of all I vaguely remembered that I might have to start paying my lease on April 1st. The thought of having to pay the lease for many months before I could get started on the remodel was a lurking monster renting space in my brain. Would I need to forgo paying some of my rea life bills to cover my business expenses until I could actually start making some money? The catering season doesn't really start for another 2-3 months. Would the Health Department require me to buy all of the equipment before approving my permit? If it was rejected, would I have to start the whole $1800 process over again? Let me tell you, these thoughts are ulcers in the making! So what did I do? I contacted a few people who have expressed interest in my project and asked if they would be willing to loan me some small amounts of money for a short period of time. I called my landlord and said, "It looks like I am supposed to start paying the lease on May 1, is this correct?" To which he said, "Yes" and then I called my primary investor to check on fund disbursement and was told it was very likely going to be next week. I also called the Heath Department for clarification on the process, wherein I found my application has been approved. It is amazing how quickly stressors can be quelled with just a few phone calls and trying to think outside the box. So please keep this in mind when YOU go for YOUR dreams. When the demons get too loud, grab your pitchfork and shut those f*ckers up! And so... Tree, look around at the forest! My forest was getting pretty thick and hard to traverse. Not only did I not see a light at the end of the tunnel, I could not even imagine the mid way point in the tunnel. Every hoop I jumped thru had ten more hoops waiting on the other side, some flaming. It's been so long since I even thought about actually making FOOD in a commercial setting, lost as I was in beaurocratic red tape. FOOD? You have to have a facility to cook in, tables to eat on, vendors who deliver your basic products, a staff to help you... actual cooking in a kitchen of my own seemed like the most rediculously far away pipe dream. Today it seems a lot closer! I am actually starting to think about FOOD again! What makes a person chase a dream? I sometimes feel a little guilty that I am so passionate (driven, insanely obsessed? Whatever!) when my friends express they wish they felt passion for a vocation. I hate to point this out, but I tend to be REALLY easily amused and find joy in all kinds of things... I am neither a cynic or pessimist, nor do I feel a jaded superiority towards the world. I secretly suspect this one personality trait is nearly a prerequisite to being a passionate dreamer. Oh and having a plan... a vision for exactly what it will feel like to live your dream. I have memories I make in my head every day that have not happened yet. The day I open. What I will serve. What Stein will be doing. I can SEE the sunshine. I can SMELL the coffee brewing. I can see the mural Ob is painting on the wall. I can visualize my customers reaction. I can see myself walk down to the B of A merchant cash drop. I can smell the wet hot pastrami being sliced for oooohhhhhing guests. I cannot imagine a world where these memories don't happen. I made them years ago. Then I went to school to learn, spent very targeted time in the professional world learning what I wanted to know. Wente for Catering... Perbacco for salumi and high end food. Selected my work partner, hard working, dependable, strong in areas I am weak. Maybe it seems extreme to have spent four years preparing for this one thing. To visualize the memory and to want it so much, then to fill in the blanks to make it happen even when it takes so much time and effort. I cannot imagine world without the passion I have for what I do. I wish I knew what to say when friends express envy... Let yourself dream? That makes it sound like some kind of personal failing... like if they just, you know TRIED... as if THEY are the obstacle to finding their dream. But I didn't look for my passion, it found me and took hold all on it's own and I feel less its master than it masters me. And it was terrifying to go back to school and start over in my late 30's. Working for peanuts or nothing to gain knowledge was not something most people my age can afford to do. What to you may seem like an enviable passion, could have also gone horribly awry (Do you ever wonder why their are not more big time female chefs? It's not sexism... it's because women are brilliant and would rather break the sex barrier in a profession like Law or Medicine where you actually make money). It could STILL go horribly awry (but we are putting lots of love out into the universe, so knock on wood!). I guess I wish I could impart to some of my friends, "Make it an every day pleasure to dream as hard as you can and keep making future memories and thinking of ways to make them real."