Mayalaen

As mentioned in my Previous Post, I’m finally feeling better and can laugh at the epic shit-show my family has been putting on for the last few months.

Last you guys read, I was desperately trying to sell the shop.

I opened the shop with a 5-year plan (make it successful and sell at 5 years) and it’s now going on 12 years, interrupted by the pan/demic -- I was in the middle of selling it in February 2020 but that deal was dropped in the middle of March for some reason 😝

2020 and 2021 were spent making the shop work without me being there - doing everything from home. 2022 was spent putting a ton of time into getting everything in the books all shiny and ready to sell again.

In the meantime, for the last 3 years, Charlie and Marissa have been harassing me every chance they get, saying how the shop is holding them back, why haven’t I sold yet, they have things to do, and being snippy with me, blaming me for the heavy quarantine me, my mom, and my dad have been under even though it was a mutual decision between us 3 because of my mom’s cancer & immune system + my dad’s heart issues.

Charlie and Marissa treated me so bad that at one point my mom wrote a letter to them explaining the situation and that we were just being careful of the pan/demic because otherwise she MIGHT DIE.

And she also mentioned that I was actually still doing A LOT of the shop work, just from home - she said it tactfully and in a way that didn’t sound like “she does way more work than you so shut up.”

They took it well and started treating me A LOT better after that which made me bitter about the whole thing, because I told them all those things but apparently schizophrenic me didn’t say it the exact right way for the normal  people to understand/care about it. (you guys talk in feelings?!)

But at least after the letter they were letting me adjust how they worked and they stopped getting bad reviews for the shop once they started behaving 😡

I’ve been talking with tons of different people in the tattoo industry, working out the sale, and got to the point where I was in serious talks and ready to take the next step.

I’ve been working so hard on all of it for so long that I was beginning to get burnout. Knew it was coming and that I was dangerously close to a psychotic episode, and I knew I had to sell quick and seriously relax.

Mom said we should have a meeting with Charlie and Marissa to make sure we were on the same page so things with the sale went smoothly, and so we all met at our house, mom and I in masks but Charlie and Marissa refusing (aren’t they so loving and wonderful?).

As we’re talking, Charlie kinda chuckles and says that he and Marissa were recently talking and they decided that maybe we shouldn’t sell because the shop pays all our combined bills.

Which they already knew. They’ve known for years.

They’re in real estate and sell about 2 houses a year normally and it pays for their vacations and hobbies, but their bills are paid by me.

They could’ve done more real estate in their spare time (they only work a 30-hour week for me at the shop) but didn’t because the real estate market has drastically changed due to the pan/demic and big real estate businesses that came in and have made it nearly impossible for independent real estate agents to get any work. (A real estate agent friend of my dad’s can’t get any work at all and is now driving an ice cream truck)

So I hid my shock when Charlie and Marissa said they didn’t want to sell the shop, and I let them continue talking.

Turns out they’ve been all pissy about everything because they just didn’t really want to work at the shop but when faced with the possibility that they’d have to support themselves through real estate, they had a record scratch moment.

Throughout the rest of the meeting I didn’t let them know anything was getting to me. We just talked about where we go from here and that because of business/industry changes, they’re going to have to take on more responsibility.

They agreed and even suggested more things they could do I wasn’t even planning on dumping on them.

In the end, I’m still kinda thrown by it, but I’m to the point where I can laugh about it.

The shop does make good money, and it’s still growing year over year, but I REALLY REALLY wanted to go into a completely different field -- one I’ve been dreaming of for years and already have people/businesses ready to pay me lots of money for including benefits. Way more $ than I make after splitting profits at the shop with my family!

But selling the shop would financially devastate the rest of my family and they’d have to get their asses in gear real quick or lose everything.

For now, I’m seeing how this goes.

I’m giving them more and more responsibility, taking more time for myself, and the shop is doing REALLY well. Even Kaylan (family friend who is paid to run social media for us) is stepping up her game and our advertising is awesome!

I’m going to keep shifting more and more onto Charlie and Marissa until I get to the point where I have a comfortable amount of time every day to work, write, game, cook, clean, and enjoy my fucking life.

So far it’s going well, and I’m hopeful that it’ll keep getting better.

I’m already to the point where I’ve started gaming again and I’ve got some stories in my head raging to get written. I also feel as though I could travel if I wanted to, and I’m ready to jump back into social media/fandom.

Now that my head is clearing up, things are SO MUCH EASIER LIKE YOU HAVE NO IDEA and the creative part of my brain is waking up again after a long time of nothing 🥰

The bitterness will hopefully fade, and in the meantime our bills get paid.