It's been awhile since I've written on this blog! I hope you'll welcome me back as I get back into writing! I so enjoy sitting down with a cup of coffee and sharing what I've been excited about lately. My biggest hope is to create a community and get to know some others that share the same interest and passions from across the world!
My first post back is maybe a heavy one. But, also one that creates some delighted anticipation for what's to come in my day-to-day life. This is because I've had to do some immense pondering of what comes next. Slow down? Speed up? A combo? Is there a fork in the road? Or, is the road still straight and defined?
Since graduating college in 2002, I have earnestly worked to "get ahead." I've juggled my career working for large retailers in buying, account management, and visual roles as well as growing my own business on the side. In the last few years, I grew my business to a level where it could be my sole income, if needed.
However, tariffs were announced last April and then in October the full-time job I had shuttered its doors after seventy-seven years in business. So, I was suddenly thrust into an age of uncertainty again.
It is not a given anymore that the work I did to grow my business can sustain me. I stopped importing goods last May due to tariffs. It's crazy that was ten months ago at this point. I ordered as much as I could to get me through the busy Summer and Christmas holiday. But, was unable to restock as I normally would have. Tariffs were ten percent one day, thirty-five percent the next, and then in the case of India up to fifty percent. Planning was impossible. And, taking a chance that the tariff amount would change so drastically while a shipment was in route, potentially wiping out all profits (or even putting it in the negative) was just too much to risk.
A tariff of ten to fifteen percent seems manageable. But, when the margins are so slim, it's actually quite significant. Additionally, it's not just the tariff. Some of my typical, more economical, shipping carriers won't even deal with tariffs. So, I am forced to pay a higher shipping rate with another carrier. And, that carrier typically also charges fees. Once everything is said and done, the cost of the tariff, shipping, and fees can be a third of the cost of the product in the shipment.
I actually had a neighbor say that we need more factories and businesses sourcing in the US, knowing full well my business is built around my love for travel and sharing the world with others through the beauty of products primarily from India and Japan. The world should be more interconnected and in harmony versus being silo'd off and isolated. I shouldn't have to change my business model to create items in the US lest I be tariffed out of existence.
So, the business I built to be self sustaining is stagnant. And, I am on the hunt again for full-time work.
However, therein comes another difficulty. I moved to a town of twenty-five hundred people in 2020, three hours from the nearest large city that would have companies hiring in my field. While many companies are still not fully back in the office, the majority require a hybrid schedule. There is very, very few who are hiring anyone that needs to be one hundred percent remote, which I need to be due to my location.
I am certainly attempting to relay to companies how my skills might have them make an exception and also share my proven ability to work fully remote these past six years. There have been some really exciting opportunities come up, so I am crossing my fingers one of them comes through.
If a remote job does not come to fruition, and tariffs remain, Here comes the age old quest of work life balance and meaning in life. In juggling a full-time job and my business, I have constantly battled with whether I want to get ahead or just "make enough" and live a more simple life. Every job I have had, I have been promoted to manage the largest territory/area/team. And, in my business, in there have been many time periods where I was a leader and/or trend setter in my genre, which brought a lot of feelings of accomplishment, but a lot of stress as well.
In 2018, the constant dread and pressure was really coming to a head. I had to find a way to finally make some peace and stability with how I was living each day. I texted one of my sisters and said what if I moved back to Minnesota? I had lived in Florida for twenty years and then Atlanta for six years. She responded, "Of course you can. It's not like if you move there it has to be the end of the circle. You can stay or you could move on to somewhere else." She was exactly right. I had moved countless times in my twenties and thirties. Every few years, I got antsy, and would load a moving truck and be on to the next adventure. So, why should "moving home" have to be the end of the road? Therefore, in less than three months, I transferred with my job and was living back in Minnesota. I loved it. And, wondered why I didn't do it sooner.
The reason I thought being back in Minnesota would bring me some of this peace and stability was really just a hunch, maybe a little nostalgia. But, I had enough experience flying back into Minneapolis and feeling the slow weight be released along the two and a half hour drive north to my hometown. The city slowly transitions to field after field of snow and sleepy small towns. And, at the end of the drive was family - my parents and a huge tree of cousins descending from seventeen aunts and uncles, many of which still lived in the area.
Transitioning and staying true to my goal wasn't easy. I fell into common patterns of taking on too much. But, I righted myself as best I could and plodded on. I bought my forever house (I know. I know. I said it wasn't the end of the road. But, I think it is because it's truly my forever house.) - a seventies mountain style cabin on one of Minnesota's (over) ten thousand lakes. The dark purple, wallpaper, and drape covered interior is brightening up with layers of Sherwin Williams Snowbound paint. And, I've painstakingly started taking over the turf and paver covered lawn with a naturalist perennial garden, have ten fruit trees/bushes on the way for my own little orchard, and am planning out my vegetable garden. It's the "balance" part of the work life balance - the respite I needed in my off time.
Sometimes unintentional circumstances lead to intentional changes in life paths that we might not otherwise have been brave enough to take. I started re-directing my path when I moved back to Minnesota and to a quieter, slower life outside of a city. The reality of how full-time work or my business might end up could be the unintentional circumstances that push me to go further along my path to a more simple life.
What if I accepted a job that was a lesser role or hours than before? What if I didn't push my business to reach the brinks of its potential? Could not fighting against the inevitable be the final piece in securing the daily rhythm in life I've been searching for?
Doing some calculations, I've projected a reduced income and working hours to shoot for if this comes to fruition. In the hours I would have previously been working (or commuting), I will spend growing my own food and cooking from scratch. I am not naive to the fact that this could (and most likely will) be hard. But, I am also aware of how much money I have until now spent on prepared foods, hiring out jobs on my house that I could have easily done myself, etc. If ever there was a time for a slower, more intentional, life - one that I have more ownership of - is now.
Have you navigated portions of this yourself? Are any forty-five year olds making this same decision to enter semi-retirement? Any of those more seasoned can you share things you wish you would have known earlier?
To what's to come!
Love, Jess
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