Monday, December 31, 2012

My year end review: 2012: The Clean Up

While I can't say 2012, in its entirety, was particularly better or worse than the last few years, "the drama" has slowed down enough for me to catch up and clean up! The years since the beginning of the recession have seemed to drag on for me at a painful pace, and at times, simply spiral out of control. However, for the first time in a long time, much of 2012 felt like the figurative "light at the end of the tunnel" was only about 5 feet in front of me. However, no matter how fast I ran towards it, it kept moving forward too. Until recently.

Towards the end of this year, I had a string of days/weeks in a row where I actually found myself a bit uncomfortable with the reality that my mind was quiet, my family settled, by business operating smoothly, my marriage solid, my creativity flowing...and to be honest, it freaked me out a little bit. I felt like I needed to be very still, so as not to interrupt this awkward contentment or by some strange flick of the wrist initiate the other shoe dropping. Today, New Year's Eve 2012, I'm still sitting still. I'm breathing a few well-deserved breaths and taking stock of the last year and the whirlwind of events it has blown through my life.

In January of this year, my mother took a turn for the worse. She has had MS for most of my life, but several years ago, we realized that her cognitive condition was not being caused by that. In 2008, she was diagnosed with FTD (Frontal Temporal Dementia). Just after celebrating her 60th birthday (on January 8th - aka "Elvis' birthday), her symptoms became more pronounced. My sisters and I knew the time had come to move her into a facility that could care for her better than we could. Some of you may know the pain, the guilt, the sadness that comes along with something like this, and as much as I tried to prepare myself for how that would feel, I simply had no idea. Moving her into a place where she adamantly did not want to go, moving her things out of the house that we built for her, seeing her entire life stuffed into a small storage unit, as if there were some chance she would come back to get it all....these are events and realizations that change a person. I think that in my life thus far, this was the hardest week I had ever lived. Thankfully, I knew how lucky I was that I could go through these motions and still get to hug her, to smell her perfume and look her in the eye to say I love you.

Following this period of time, I started to see how out of whack my priorities were. There's nothing quite like boxing up an entire lifetime of memories to make you see how empty yours might look in comparison. I realized that I had been spending nearly every ounce of energy, every second of my day trying to maintain a business that, for all intents and purposes, just never should have been open to begin with. In previous blogs, I've written about the struggles we had with the city of Los Angeles while opening my restaurant, Henry's Hat. While the restaurant was a success and people loved it, our legal and zoning battles shoved us in a financial hole that was basically impossible to climb out of. After numerous attempts, countless fights, and killing any ego I had left, my husband and I decided that it just wasn't worth it anymore. Someone else could literally walk in, debt free, and make a great living from the business we created. A very hard pill to swallow.  But we did it. We sold it. While it was one of the hardest decisions I've ever made, I felt like (for the first time in a long time) I made the right decision. Almost immediately, life got a little easier. I got one step closer to that 'light at the edge of the tunnel,' and to top it off, we ultimately saved the 45 jobs we created by selling and not just closing our doors. It hurt, but I finally found some peace in the process.

After the purge of some of these majorly stressful stimuli in my life, I had a quick but fun period of blessings come through my summer....I got a new manager who seemed to take a real interest in my acting career, I had two, long-time regular Henry's Hat patrons hook me up with 10th row-center tickets to "Book of Mormon" on Broadway (these amazing people also got me an autographed poster from Matt Stone and Trey Parker - incredible), I celebrated my 5th wedding anniversary to the man of my dreams, and even garnered my very first Emmy Nomination as a producer on the web hit, "The Bay!" This was the first moment of 2012 where I stopped, took a quizzical look around and skeptically thought, "could the worst be over?"..."Are we approaching a new normal?" I almost felt guilty or that I was somehow jinxing myself for having such an inconceivable thought. I also realized that most of these things (minus the Book of Mormon awesomeness), had not just fallen in my lap. As my mother would have said, these were results of "making it happen." I really only noticed this in retrospect, but I realized then and there that perhaps this was the way to actually REACH the light at the tunnel's end.

With a combination of that "make it happen" spirit, my incredibly supportive and motivating circle of friends and family, my genius IQ husband - AJ, and a few key investors, we made a few more things happen. Earlier this year, we raised a large chunk of change to start a new business, called ChefSheet.com. After 4 years of owning/operating 3 restaurants in a depressed financial market, we saw the need for a way to control our costs (ie: when you can't increase revenue, you have to cut costs). So, ChefSheet is the very first, completely FREE, cloud-based inventory management smartphone/tablet app on the market. In addition to it's main function of inventory management, we also patented the ability to share and compare prices across the market anonymously. The potential of this business is huge and the reward to other mom and pop shops like ours could mean the difference between staying open and closing it's doors. For us, it feels like a win win for everyone, and for me, it's a full circle moment with Henry's Hat.

Another blessing arrived in the form of....wait for it....drumroll....The Virgin Mary! Yes, the Virgin Mary! In October, I received a message from an incredibly talented director with whom I worked nearly a decade ago. She asked me to come to NYC and head up a cast of ladies in a dynamic and somewhat controversial play called, "Mary of New York." The play is not about the Biblical story surrounding the Virgin Mary, but simply about a mother who lost her son...about a woman who gave up her youth to raise this son.....about a woman who took on the most monumental responsibility without a question or a complaint. Honestly, the experience reminded me of how strong my mother used to be, about how strong I could be, about how afraid of having children I am, and that I DEFINITELY ALWAYS want to be an actress! It was so fulfilling, so educational, so inspiring. (**To the Carny Girls of NYC, I am in awe of you and so grateful you gave me such an amazing and creative experience. I am certain I am a better actress because of you!**)

Finally, my last "make it happen" moment of 2012 was recently completed. I set out to write a script about a vision I had last year when someone asked me (shortly after selling HH) what I wanted to do now with "all my time." My answer was something like, "well I was happiest when I was dancing, but I'm 30-something (cough cough) now and I probably can't do a lot of that stuff anymore." From there, my script began to take form. My secret (well, not anymore) wish is that someday, you will see it on TV. Until then, I have written a script. It is mine. It will always be mine. It was hard. I was scared, but I did it. And it feels soooo good! 

Here are a list of some things I am grateful for at this year's end....
-My husband
-My friends (especially the strong ones)
-My siblings
-My parents (all 3 of them)
-Henry
-Good health
-My home (particularly my bed)
-New York City
-Tinkle lights
-Spinning/Frankie/Karen
-My computer
-My agent and manager
-Our investors/ChefSheet
-President Obama
-Opportunity
-Mario Batali
-Creativity
-The Dalai Lama
-The Carny Girls
-Music
-Our continued prosperity

I've decided for 2013 not to make any resolutions. I'm simply looking forward to a year of peace, stability, rebuilding, re-connecting and being grateful for the people in my life who love me. Gratitude and humility will be my guiding compass for the year to come! Happy New Year!

"People say things like 'treat yourself, you deserve that vacation' or 'have that sticky toffee pudding, you only live once' and other things that suggest that being good to yourself is about allowing yourself immediate pleasure. There are difficult things that we can do for ourselves in the present that will provide peace and security over the long term. Perhaps these are the times we are really treating ourselves." ~ A.J. Gilbert