The Week Everything Backed Up

When the biggest news of the week is a spin studio slowly filling with sewage.

Let’s recap, because I know it’s been a couple of weeks.

The life of a business owner is often unpredictable… but the last few weeks threw me some curveballs that deserved my full attention.

When we last left off, the ink was just drying on the paperwork to purchase the Church. I had raced to Charleston from just outside of DC in an oversized Suburban filled with three dogs, five spin bikes, miscellaneous audio equipment… and a husband who may or may not have had a concussion (in hindsight, almost definitely) after a very scary accident during rush hour traffic.

My hope — the tiny, delusional, HomeGoods-inspired kind — was that the crash would shift something in HR. That is was the moment that might shake him awake. Make him realize that whatever he was doing wasn’t working. That maybe almost dying on I-95 would deliver the cosmic slap required for reflection.

It did not. If anything, it felt like it pushed him further away.

There was no heart-to-heart. No emotional unpacking. No pause to reflect on what caused the accident. Every time I tried to broach the subject, I felt like I was walking on eggshells. Not me wishing I’d had ChatGPT in 2021 to tell me the right thing to say… because even breathing sometimes felt like the wrong move.

All five of us — three dogs and two adults — were crammed into the 200-square-foot studio apartment while Airbnb guests filled the main house. I defaulted to my usual post-crisis role: stay useful, stay quiet, stay out of HR’s way.

After a much-needed shower to wash the motel off and attempt to feel human again, I walked into the pop-up studio to tackle one of the thousand items on my list. The moment i opened the door, it hit me.