The Other Half

I drag my luggage at 8:00 AM to an empty flat with my stuffs in total disarray. Not that I'm surprised. The past weeks before the trip was a marathon of overtimes and between that and packing the stuffs for the shop, I was not able to clean the house before leaving. So at 8 AM, I find myself cleaning house and doing the laundry, dreary proofs that vacation is over. At the back of my mind is the email from my boss about a deadline on Thursday. (How's that for a dampener? Three days before my vacation was supposed to end, I get an email about work and the tight deadline.) This is, sigh, the reality of Seoul life on weekends. Chores. I fell asleep after the cleaning and washing. Waking up, I set aside the week's ironing load, went out to buy some stuffs and got to ironing a week's worth of officewear. And now it's thirteen past ten. In an hour I'd sleep to be ready for the week's workload and long working hours.

Alone, tired from doing the chores, in a silent flat, save for the music blaring from my imac, I suddenly miss my other life in Pinas. Being the bitchy boss, dealing only with the business. The little surprises that come with opening the shop day after day-- getting new clients, the amazingly great turn of events that an email I sent to a blogger/columnist brought to the shop, the late nights chatting with the kids in the neighborhood. Even the laughable day when on a whim, we sold off the lanzones from the farm and made a sort of bake-off sale offering spaghetti and dimsum to neighbors. I am filled with amazing optimism when it comes to the business, knowing how we reached great sales in 10 days without much advertising. And it is a great feeling to realize that finally I found an assistant who feels strongly for the business as much as I do. Despite our daily bickering , it's great to have an assistant who also have concrete ideas. The first one didn't pan out, but now it feels that I've found someone who understands what is meant by "going the distance" to provide a good experience to every client who comes to us.

Knowing that my being in Seoul propels the business forward (and allows me to work on my own personal goals), it's a more than welcome trade-off. I also love my job, but my heart is in the small store that's finally taking off. And I feel so proud, beaming, shaking my head,. It's my baby, the one concrete, or more precisely, brick and mortar evidence of how far my little foray in entrepreneurship have gone. Yes, it's still relatively smalltime, but I'd never have thought I'd come to this point so soon :-)

So sometimes, when I feel sad. I choose to look at the unexpected, unplanned goals I've accomplished. Now I understand the reason why life does not often turn out the way we've planned it to be. It is simply because we are meant for far better things, stuffs we would not dare try if we have gotten what we thought we wanted.