Confessions of a College Business Owner

I’m writing this with my eyes half shut and my brain slightly turning to mush. So please excuse any typos or bad grammar or just terrible writing! Because you see, I’ve shot a family session, driven to Harrisonburg and back to shoot a wedding, and shot an engagement session this weekend, and that’s pretty much been my weekend for the past several weekends. I am not at ALL complaining because I absolutely love photography and nothing else in life gives me the high that I get from taking pictures and making people feel beautiful. I’m just tired. Not just physically, but mentally too… because in the midst of the busiest photography season I’ve ever had, I’m also keeping up with my 12 credits’ worth of 400-level management and commerical law classes… and I feel like I’m being pulled in half. I feel like my brain, my time, and my energy is being fought over by college and my business. And I want to do both!! Because, um, if I had to choose, guess who would win that fight… it’s not even a QUESTION. (hint: photography). But I’ve tried so hard to get good grades and keep my GPA above a 3.75 these past three years that it’s really difficult to not be putting in the same time and energy this semester that I’ve always devoted to school.

To be honest, I don’t know what God’s trying to teach me right now. I’m overwhelmed every minute of every day, and I just want to give up and walk away from my school work even though I know I never would. It’s REALLY hard to be doing legal case write-up’s when I have a wedding deadline approaching and X amount of shoots I want to edit and this blog post to write, etc. etc. I LOVE this business and I love writing on the blog and taking pictures and sharing them with my clients and with my followers. I don’t love school half as much as I love photography. But I KNOW God is giving me this degree for a purpose… more than one. I’ll never regret going to college and I’ll never wish I hadn’t, but ohhhh my goodness is it wonderful to be able to see the LIGHT AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL. Every day I have “Just three more months” repeating over and over in my head as I sit through three hour lectures and write papers and cram for exams. I have no idea what my life will look like one, two, or five years from now, but I’m pretty sure I won’t be going back to school (unless it’s for teaching, but that’s another blog post for another day). This is by far the toughest, busiest, most exhausting season of my life and I am in desperate need of some encouragement (and preferably, someone to tell me it’s okay for me to be spending the day/evening in Richmond with other local industry photographers the night before my first huge Competitive Strategy exam. LOL. The irony…). I need to learn how hard to work and how often to rest. Or if it’s okay to work really hard for three months and see my boyfriend less than 2 hours a week so that maybe we can spend more time together in the future. I’m so torn between finishing school with good grades and feeling like I’m actually living a life this semester and not just working. And I’m falling asleep as I’m writing this and I’ve just had the revelation that maybe I need to start drinking coffee. Maybe that would wake me up a little bit. It would probably at least give me the energy to try to put some humor into a post like this and not just ramble on about my feelings. But I’m just being honest, as always. And that’s gotten me into trouble in the past but I feel like this blog is a safe place for me to confess that I am just hanging on by a thread right now. I really want to just curl up on the couch and eat pizza and chocolate chip cookies and watch a Netflix episode or two. (I can’t even name a show. It’s gotten to that point.) But I know that will come… eventually! Even if the only time I can do that with a peace of mind is in December after I’ve graduated!

The truth is, when you’re a college business owner, or an entreprenuer in general, you don’t always have control over your time. And that’s okay. All of us are actually rarely in control of our lives anyways. We can plan as much as we want and things can change in the blink of an eye. So my mantra this week (and for this semester) is to just take each day as it comes. Take life one day, one hour, one minute at a time. I’m tackling all my little lists I have just one little check mark at a time and I’m making it through. I’m still doing what I love, I’m still finishing what I started, and I’m still desperately trying to strengthen the relationships in my life with the people I love. But I’m not perfect and I fail all too often, so please forgive me if you feel like you haven’t seen me in five months! I promise when I graduate I’ll be throwing a big party for EVERYONE to come celebrate with me. And then I’ll have a little bit more time in my life to devote to things other than school! YAY! And I’m not entirely sure what the point of this post was other than I’m kind of really swamped and I’m trying REALLY hard to still blog 3 times a week and keep up with everything but I’m not perfect and that’s okay! The time will come when I will be a full-time photographer but until then… I’ll just keep chuggin’ along! Have a wonderful Monday!!