Cracked Fingers and Taking Stock

It blows my mind how many people, women especially, get that far off look in their eye when they talk to me about what it must be like to own a coffee shop.... and i know that they're picturing some idyllic, quaint experience that involves the smell of baked goods and brewing tea and music playing on the stereo.

And it is all that.

But I can tell that no one really takes into consideration the sliced fingers from sharp knives and how much they burn when you bleach the cutting boards at the end of the night and how all the little creases in your hands turn black from grinding coffee beans and you look kinda like you've been out in your perennial beds planting crocuses for hours....with dirt all caked on your hands that won't wash out. Or maybe they're not thinking about how you're dreams at night turn from sweet symbolic metaphors of life into repeats of nightly cash out sheets or sudden onslaughts of panic about whether or not you ordered enough of that Sumatran French roast that people just freak out about.

Two nights ago, around 10:30pm, I was talking to a friend on the phone while I was making soup for the shop. She was surprised that I had worked all day and was still putting in time for the shop that late at night and asked if it was like that every day. When I told her that yeah, it kinda is, she was surprised that I wasn't complaining and miserable about how much all of this was consuming me. I don't know if it's that I'm not really seeing the forest through the trees or if it just feels good to be putting myself into something but it made me realize that I don't feel compelled at all, really, to complain about it. I guess that's a pretty good thing.

But still, customers (and people I don't even know) ask me how it's going and if I think it's successful so far and while those are such incredibly vague questions and there's no possible way I can give them the full score of an answer during the time it might take me to draw an espresso shot and steam their milk, I find that (even deep down) I like what I'm doing. Whether or not it's successful, I have no freaking clue. It's still too early in the game to know.

I spent sooo much time looking over the Profit and Loss statements of the previous owner while I was building the business plan I couldn't put to use and just a few days ago I took a look at my very own first P&L for my first full month. Talk about driving it home. It was a little like looking at your newborn and thinking 'did i really make happen?'.