The Finish Line

I woke up this morning at 5:45.  Waking up before the sun is very unusual behavior for me.  I was not happy.  But I got up, washed my face, brushed my teeth, and got dressed.  I then proceeded to load my car up with every hand painted sign and knit hat I had made.  In the sub-freezing early morning light, I got everything loaded, left my sleeping family in their beds, and sure I was forgetting at least ten things, I headed into town.  Today was the first day of my first ever Arts and Crafts Fair.

I lucked out by finding a parking spot right in front of the main doors, and started to haul in box after box, feeling things were off to a great start.  Once the car was unloaded and re-parked, I confronted my booth.  My positive mood vanished as I quickly became overwhelmed by the chaos in front of me.  But I had to pull it together somehow, so I took a deep breath, and dove in.  Luckily, my father was kind enough to hang out and help me assemble racks, and together we started to build up my booth. 

It didn’t take long for the chaos to start to subside, and pretty soon it was looking pretty awesome.  My positive mood returned, and as I hung my signs and set up my display, the nervousness in my belly began to be replaced with excitement.  Finally, I stepped back to survey the finished product.  I had to admit, it looked awesome.  With half an hour to go before people started to walk through the doors, I had transformed my mass of creativity, into a very professional looking booth.  I was giddy.  It almost didn’t matter to me what the rest of the day would hold, I had made it to the finish line.  The culmination of months of hard work was displayed before me, and it was beautiful.