Fifteen Years Later...

  

I still go to the same place most mornings.  Whether I have climbed into my car or into a good pair of walking shoes...most mornings for the last fifteen years have found me grabbing my leaopard key and inserting it into the door of Snap Snap.

A door I hand painted myself over the years to reflect picture decorations and hours of operation.

Just like I painted the vintage salvaged windows that hang in my front window, just like I painted the easel to match my business cards that I set in front of the shop each morning (depending on the weather) and just like I painted the wooden sign that hangs over the shop.  Which happens to be the second sign I've painted in the last fifteen years.

Fifteen years.

I can't believe it.

I won't tell you that time has passed like the blink of an eye any more than I'll tell you that I can feel each day of the last fifteen years.  I remember the snatches of the first day in the shop...I can remember being nervous and excited.  I know now, I had not one clue what I was getting myself into all those years ago.

I was too young to even imagine.

Too young to know then what I know now...and I'm sure I will be able to say that about myself years from now as well.

I can surely sit and contemplate how many times fashion and styles have changed over the last fifteen years and how many times I've had to recreate things...redefine...reorganize...redo.

My original flier with the "wrong" phone number that I had to cross out...and LONG hours

Upon a whole lot of reflection today, I know that whatever I have done these last fifteen years has not been alone.  I have had more help over and over again...from family, friends, landlords, the handful of consignment accounts I've carried over the years, all of my customers, my buyers, my sellers, and those who do trades...and yet, I also realized that nothing that has happened these last fifteen years would have been if it was not for what I've done as well.

Snap Snap and I have a very deep relationship with each other and the community we so happily and proudly live in.

We seem to walk on this journey hand in hand

Rich walked into Snap Snap early morning today...while I was hanging up streamers and putting out cookies...making signs and getting things all ship shape (in the snow I might add)  He wanted to congratulate me and tell me how proud he was of me.  He wanted to take my picture...which was a total surprise.  He wanted to document what 15 years looked like...just like when my friend Doty walked in on day one (that first picture up there with me in the same Dr. Martens I graduated college in, the ones that helped my mother to identify me walking across the stage to collect my diploma?)  to document what day one looked like...

(it looks younger and the walls look less painted and the carpet newer)

This is when I got very very teary-eyed.

Rich says that this picture makes me look like a shop owner...and I realize that indeed, it kind of does.  It makes me look like I know something... It's been a long run all these days in Snap Snap.  All the lessons learned, the laughter and fun...the upsets and set backs.

Fifteen years.

I guess I know a lot of somethings.

This is my life.

And I'm very proud.

Thank you...all of you...for the past fifteen years...and those years yet to come.