Your baby...

One day you have a “twinkle” in your eye.  Before you know it you have conceived.  Your excitement cannot be contained.  Can I really do this?  Am I old enough?  Am I smart enough?  Will I have the resources to protect this baby from harm?  Will I know how to raise it properly?  Too many questions!  But oh how excited you are!

You clean and paint and prepare with ever growing anticipation.  The day is drawing near.  You tell everyone you know and beam with pride when they share in your joy and congratulate you.

You stay awake nights wondering….what shall I name it?  Will it be healthy?  I hope I’m not doing anything wrong!  I would hate to harm it in any way.  I am just so excited….it’s almost time now!

And then!!......all the sweat, all the tears, all the money, all the exhaustion, all the excitement leads you straight to that beautiful day….when you flip on the open sign to your brand new bead store!

She is unique…one of a kind!  And you put so much of yourself into her creation.  The pride can barely be contained.  And then the visitors come and they praise you on how beautiful she is, how fresh and new she looks and smells, how happy they are that she is finally here and they will come and visit her often.  And they do.  And she grows.  And you continue to nurture her and put in every waking moment - and many sleeping ones - into her well-being.

As she grows you watch over her carefully…not too fast now, you’ll bust out of your britches!  But not too slowly either…the excitement of new people coming to see her is amazing.

She is a joy and brings you comfort and joy and you find that all you put into her comes flowing back over you easily.  You have made her a success!

And then one day she gets a little hurt…maybe someone said something to hurt her feelings, or maybe another stepped on her toes in their rush to pass her by?  Maybe the area she lives in isn’t always easy to get by in?  Maybe she had to watch some of her friends close their eyes for the very last time and she wonders if it will be her turn next?

But you keep putting your heart and soul into her well-being. 

And then one day she really stumbles hard.  She is bruised and shaking and bleeding pretty badly.  But once again you pick her up in your arms and put all of your energy into making the hurt go away.  You work hard once again to fix her back up.  But this time the hit was really hard and one that she will never fully heal from because it remains a daily threat.  It is huge and looming and lives high up on the hill and is constantly throwing rocks at her like a bully would. 

You taught her to have pride.  To be honest.  To be fair.   You taught her to learn to adapt.  To never confront the bully as that just gives the bully more fuel for their fire.  You taught her to just pick herself up, dust herself off and try again, and again, and again.  Sometimes daily.  She knows this road well.  She has been walking it now for many, many years.  But always around the corner lies another obstacle.  Some days they are so huge it seems there will never be a way to overcome them.  Some days she wonders if it is worth it. 

The bully will never go away.  And more bullies join it over time.  Sometimes coming out of nowhere.  She feels the pressure as more and more of them join in.  She sees her friends all over the country, all over the world dealing with the same issues she is confronted with daily from the bullies.  Some days that gives her strength, some days it makes her wonder when it will all stop being worth it.  Some days she feels she has very little breath left in her.

And then she sees all of her friends waving her on.  Smiling and supporting her and reminding her how much she is loved.  And she picks herself up yet again….

Dear friends,
The next time you walk into your local bead store, (or whatever locally owned business you may visit), take a moment to consider your words.  If you say something hurtful, consider the connection that store owner has to their business.  If you compare them to another similar business, think of how that could hurt if someone said their child was better than yours.  They are proud of their business, whether they conceived it from infancy or adopted it along the way.   They carry a love that runs very deep for what is held between those four walls.  Consider how some of us actually view them as our babies and the time and energy and love we’ve poured into them. 

Consider the time that has been put into making this a special place for you to visit.
Consider the obstacles the business has to overcome, sometimes on a daily basis, to provide you with something you want or need. 

Just be kind.  You never know what they may be dealing with.  Some days just a smile can help them climb that next hurdle.  And every day your support is priceless in more ways than you can ever imagine. 

Thanks for listening to my heart express how I feel about my own bead store.  I’m pretty certain all those other little stores sprinkled across Planet Bead feel a lot like I do.