Can time really pass by this quickly?
When our store opened in January 2013, Daria was 17 and Deanna was 5.
Daria graduated CB South that year, spent four years at James Madison University and a year at the Walt Disney Company. She came back to us in a full-time role in 2018. We were 3/4 of the way there… but little Deanna was still only 10.
Now I know time goes fast, but wow. Our store is now ten years old and “little” Deanna is 15 and working with us in prom. I can’t tell you how rewarding it is to work with my whole family, nor can I properly convey the stress of getting to this point.
It was NOT easy with her being so young and a new business needing constant attention. Where is the balance? HA, sure!! Most of the time there was no balance at all. (There still isn’t, which is why we take amazing vacations.) It was a constant state of controlled and somewhat organized chaos.
While we worked seven days a week, we were still parents. Over the years Deanna played basketball, took swimming and dance lessons, art classes, gymnastics, karate, guitar, and we did our best to participate and chauffeur her back and forth on time. Many nights she wound up back at the store, entertaining herself, until closing. We felt horrible.
The business obviously took up most of our time. Sometimes Deanna was at a friend’s house or with her grandparents, other times she was alone. She spent time playing Minecraft (I never got this, but I did like the villagers), making cookies, learning how to rainbow loom on YouTube, and then making her own tutorial videos as she quickly mastered the loom.
It was such a terrible feeling that she was left out, but she had no interest in a bridal business, obviously, at that age. She did not want to be in the store. At all. The parent guilt was strong and unrelenting.
When she was 9, we found a little solution. We started reading before she went to bed to spend time together. It was therapeutic for both of us and I remember we started out reading the Sisters Grimm book series. I looked forward to our time together where we got silly and felt important to each other, and it was nice to focus on something other than work. And it helped balance my absence guilt.
Our tradition of nightly reading continued for 3 years, until the evening of March 4, 2020. I was very sick that day and left work early (may have been Covid but there were no tests because the pandemic had not exploded yet… that was lurking right around the corner).
That night after reading I took this picture. I have no idea why. Deanna was being silly while I proudly display the potion I purchased earlier that was going to knock me out for the evening and hopefully cure me by morning. As it turned out, this picture marked the end of the old me.
The following morning, March 5, about eight hours after I took that picture, I passed out in the bathroom and broke my neck.
About a week later, the Covid bomb exploded and every routine we had, including our nightly reading and my normal way of living, ceased. Then our business was shut down. But shit happens and you can’t dwell on the shitty parts because life goes quickly and there is a lot of good if you just look. My favorite quote that I live by: When you’re marching through hell, keep going.
So we kept marching and POOF! All of a sudden it’s January 2023 and Deanna turned 15.
I thought I knew the answer when I asked, “Do you want to work in prom this season?” Imagine my shock when she said, “Sure.”
Wait, what? REALLY?!
I was expecting a number of ways she was going to say no, but I was SO happy that she wanted in! We ordered a new staff shirt (in her size), business cards (which she loves), and we got her in to start training. She clearly retained much of our countless (and “sooo boring”) business discussions over dinners because she settled right in.
Working right now only on Sundays due to other activities related to school (homework, chorus, school musical rehearsals) and hobbies (guitar lessons), she is an important part of our weekend line up. Sundays can be very hectic and Deanna – surprisingly mature and perceptive – is a calm presence. I love watching this from a distance since she started and can’t wait to see how far she takes it.
I cannot predict where we will be in another 5 years, but I know our plans and ideas. I know that we will make more memories in the store and out. I see how far we’ve come as a family unit and a family business and that the parent guilt we dealt with was unavoidable. It gets better.
(** Advice: if you’re in this parent guilt phase, try reading together. No phones, no distractions – it was really worthwhile.)
Watching both our girls, that we combined into one name Darianna, together in the store is impressive. A family business that is now a full family operation!