Success is Overwhelm

Is this true for most people, most of the time?  Does success always lead to overwhelm?  Is that why some of us have an intrinsic fear of success, whereas others fear failure?

So I’ve canned, made hooch, made syrup and various desserts and even got a welcome barter for raw milk, fresh from the cow with our surplus of pears.  Pears still litter the living room and fill the fridge and are starting to ripen faster than I can keep up.  The pears are starting to depress me.  My wrists and forearms ache from peeling.  Other chores are being neglected.  It’s no great difficulty to sit in front of the TV or Youtube and peel for hours on end without any real stress or rush, and yet still I feel the need to curl into a fetal position and pretend I’ve managed it, rather than being only about half-way through.

I just submitted my last grades for my last class at APUS forever.  I should be celebrating, because I’m really glad about it.  And, I should be thrilled for the new hobby that this pear surplus has made me start digging into:  wine-making.  From what I’m able to gather so far in my novice stage, what we’ve been calling “hooch” is actually what winemakers call ‘must’.  I think.

While I am thrilled for the new hobby and the last grading, overwhelm has tainted my success.   It feels something like grid-lock.  There are still many, many pounds of pears that need processing, and once processed, need to find a semi-permanent storage spot, and then we need to learn to really love eating canned pears.

I think I don’t know the difference between success and overwhelm, really.  To me, they are two sides of the same coin.  Handy Hubby will not be pleased to learn the only thing I can imagine now is we need to add a hobby room to the house, and a cellar.  I’m going to need lots of wine-making equipment, then in a year or so once I’ve got that down, we’ll need a still, for cognac and such.

He might also be reconsidering success.  😉

A failed pear-blueberry galette from Baking with Julia.  I just plain suck at crusts, there seems to be little hope for me, no matter how I try!