I was at a local street festival yesterday and there was a girl hooping on the street. Just hooping. I had brought my hoops, but I had also brought my husband and three kids, and really we were there to spend time together as a family. Not to hoop. But I wanted to, so so badly.
As I watched her I found myself feeling really sad. Sad that I can't do that, at least not yet. The thing is, I want to just take my hoop and go hoop all over the place. On the street, at festivals, in parades. Today is World Pride day and I know a lot of hoopers from all over the province are hooping in the parade. I bet it will be a ton of fun. I can't do that kind of stuff.
My time to hoop is already so limited as it is. I have to squeeze it in here and there, and my big 'blocks' of hooping time (my Wednesday evening and Sunday morning jams) are carefully planned around my husband's busy schedule. Anytime I want to go to an event, I have to coordinate it with him. We have three small children, all of which are on summer vacation right now, and I am a stay at home mom while my husband runs his own very busy landscape business. Unfortunately prime hoop season also falls during his busiest season. He works 6 out of 7 days, for 12 hours or more a day. This is how it has to be, it is not like he works for someone else and can just clock out when the day is done and take weekends off. When you are an entrepreneur, you work pretty much around the clock. I am ok with this and fully supportive, his goal of running a successful business and his 'workaholic' personality are what have allowed me to be able to stay at home and take care of our children, something that I have always wanted to do. For this I am really thankful.
But yeah, it does mean that the success of our landscaping business comes first, alongside the health and well being of our family, and my hooping way after that. Anytime that he does manage to take a day off, that time is spent catching up on work around the house or spending time together as a family, which is the most important thing to me. It is hardly fair that whenever my husband does make an effort to be around, I dump the children on him and run. I do use that time to plan some things for myself, like my hoop sessions, but I make it a point to plan some family activities for us as well. Otherwise it becomes a case of us just passing the kids back and forth but never actually doing anything together, all 5 of us.
Reconciling my family life and my love of hooping has often been a challenge for me. I don't always think of it as a bad thing, afterall they are two very compatible things. What better family activity is there than spending some time outdoors, hooping together? The hard part comes when I do need to divide the two, at the times when I am trying to be Martina the hoop dancer/hoop teacher/hoop maker vs Martina the Mom. I have found that my business itself is not particularly progressing at a steady pace because I'm picking away at it in between my family responsibilities.
Sometimes I feel like I am making excuses for not pushing Hoopla along at a better rate, like a truly ambitious and motivated person would make it work despite also having a family to attend to. If I am honest with myself, this is probably true in a lot of ways. I am not an ambitious, go-getter, business-type person by nature. In fact the only ambition I have ever truly had was to be a mother, and that at least I know I am good at. This whole running my own hoop business thing, I don't always know....
For the most part I can sort through these feelings and am really ok with Hoopla not necessarily blowing up and becoming a huge thing. It was never my intention to grow my business fast and furious, in fact I have taken many measures to make sure just the opposite. With my husband's business being priority and so busy already, I had purposely not marketed myself or pushed my hoops and hoop classes for fear of getting too busy, because the reality is I just don't have the backup and childcare in place for if I were in high demand. The main reason I started Hoopla at all was for the love of hooping, and so that if anyone out there is interested and does want to learn to hoop, they can seek me out and I will guide them. And that is what I have been doing.
Nevertheless, sometimes it's hard to shake this sad, nagging feeling that other people are doing more and being more in the hoop world than I will ever be. I guess you could call it the ugly face of jealousy in a way. Not necessarily jealous that they are better than me, I know better to compare myself to other hoopers, rather jealous that they can put their art first. I often wonder if I would be more motivated and ambitious about hooping if I didn't have a family as well.
I have said it before and I will say it again though, I wouldn't trade my family for all the hoops in the world, and that part is and always will be true. I take comfort in knowing that my true calling is to be a wife and mother, and I am proud of that. And I also know it doesn't mean I can't be a hoop dancer as well, or that I can't build Hoopla and have it be successful. I know that in the grand scheme of things Hoopla is still young, and there is still time. Time to grow, time to learn, time to be successful. There is no hurry.
I started Hoopla with the goal of sharing hoop dance with others. When I get caught up in thinking that I should be further along by now, I take a step back and remind myself that my kids are only little for a short period of time, and one day they will all be in school and I will be twiddling my thumbs wondering what to with myself, and when that time comes my hooping will still be there. One day my husband's business will be more established and then maybe it can take a back seat for a bit while mine gets more attention. One day all of these things will fall into place, and then maybe that day I will be the girl hooping on the street.
See, even just writing it all down makes me feel better. I think some hoop therapy might be in order too.
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