What's Next?

A rant | No recipe

Since the beginning of brothmonger, the question I’ve faced the most is “What’s next?” It has come from the most unsuspecting places and people, in the strangest and most normal circumstances. Sometimes I wonder if people have run out of things to say to me. Or if they’ve forgotten that I do other things (like gardening, reading, writing, knitting, travel, bartend, embalm people, etc.). Once I became a business, it felt like all of the other parts of me fell away. Now when people look at me, all they seem to see is a soup-making factory with potential to grow and take over the world, all while generating an unfathomable amount of capital. The expectation is mostly confusing to me.

For the better part of the last five years I’ve made the most money I’ve made in my life and I’ve been too poor to pay my rent. I’ve been happy and I’ve been absolutely miserable. I’ve broken my body, ruined my relationships, alienated my friends, and neglected my dog. I’ve worked at least three jobs, two of them full-time. You’d find me neck-deep in shit, metaphorically, while I struggle to stay afloat. I’ll look up, see a friendly face who looks at me wide-eyed in wonder and says “What’s next?”

I know that I am not alone in my frustration. My beloved, baby sister recently graduated from college and felt immediately burdened by the future, by “what’s next?”. She’d pull her hair out every day trying to come up with a response that was simultaneously satisfying to her and suitable to the masses. 

“Just breathe” I’d tell her, “give yourself a break.” She’d look back at me holding two fists full of my own hair. I know that we are all on this hamster wheel, punching “what’s next” bombs out of the sky from the minute we are born until we die. Even after we die. Can we stop? At the very least, can we come up with something a little more stimulating to talk about?

I realize how this probably sounds and I worry you’ll think I’m a whiny baby. Make no mistake, I am generally a “pull-myself-up-by-my-bootstraps” person. I work very hard and I enjoy my work. I don’t want to stop working, and most of the time, I don’t even want to work less. I make a comfortable income. So why does anything have to be next? What is wrong with this? This is a business that I built by myself from nothing. This is cool! 

We put enough expectations on ourselves before every other person adds to the pile. And the thing is, if there is an exciting new development in my life or my business, I will tell you about it, whether you ask me or not. Which brings me to my next point:  I quit my job as a funeral director. 

I’m not entirely sure what this means for me. What I do know is that I will have way more time to devote to brothmonger. This change is exciting and terrifying but has been a long time coming. I can tell you that I am so unbelievably overjoyed and hopeful for the future. Perhaps more so than ever before. For now and for the foreseeable future, you can find me and my soup at The Thyme Machine. Please come by and say hi and buy my soups and his sandwiches. And rest assured that I have no fucking idea what is next.

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-the BMer