a few semesters ago i took a fashion illustration class from the most wonderfully insane woman who really pushed me out of my comfort zone as an artist and was unbelievably encouraging the entire semester, despite the fact that my drawings are mediocre at best. any time my drawings got wonky with messed up proportions or hideous faces (im the worst at faces. i wont draw figures with faces anymore) she would always say i was "in transition". by that she meant that in order for me to move forward with my drawing skills, things were going to get awkward and my drawings were going to get worse before they got better. i always hated when shed point out that my drawings were "in transition", but she was right, the transitions were necessary in order for my drawings to improve.
long story short, this all happened about two years ago and i havent done much drawing since, but it recently hit me that what miss baizer said about drawing was true about real life too: everything is in a constant state of transition and those transitions are messy, but things do get better over time. and my response to what ms baizer said about drawings is still true in regards to real life: i hate transitions.
im a very black and white person, i want things to be here OR there, not somewhere in between, and, well, ive spent a lot of the past few years living in the "in between", and well, ive always hated it. i hated being engaged, i hated being pregnant, ive hated every time weve been between jobs or houses or there was any kind of unknown going on around us. i feel like most people are really into the thrill of the anticipation and i am just not. in all honesty, it just stresses me out.
i used to think this meant that something was wrong with me and that i was a miserable unhappy person that would never be satisfied with anything in life, but then i had a major epiphany: different people thrive in different environments. i thrive in routine, predictability, stability, and well, thats just not the life ive had lately. and thats totally ok. its ok that these last few years have been hard for me because theyve been chock full of big transitions and i do not do well with transitions. (that was bolded mainly for me)
and even though im not a fan of prolonged transitional phases, a lot of ours are coming to an end: mainly, i graduate next may and james should have a year or less before he journeys out of his apprenticeship. so everythings going to be ok.
i want to say i had that breakthrough a month or so ago and since then, ive been on a roll with epiphany after epiphany and since this recent outpouring of clarity is going to (probably drastically) change what happens here on the blog, i thought id take some time to let them all out at once (instead of dragging them all out or having to explain myself overtime something changes. also, yes i realize its been forever since i posted last, ill get to that later). so here we go:
1. my "public persona" and "blogging voice" are so not who i really am.
im not exactly sure how it happened (and how it happened isnt really important anymore), but ive spent the past few years trying to be the kind of person i thought i was "supposed" to be, the kind of person that other people would like since i didnt have any friends. what that meant was that in an attempt to gloss over all my flaws and the serious trials i was going through, i created this laid-back, easygoing, overly cheerful persona that is just so not me. of course this totally backfired because since i wasnt ever really honest with anyone, i still had a hard time making friends, and it got to the point where i wasnt really sure what i was even actually like anymore. so now im working on not doing that, and while its a been a challenge, i feel like its a step in the right direction.
2. i want to keep blogging but i hate what the blogging scene has become.
all this time ive been not-blogging ive been thinking about blogging, i swear. but i havent been able to actually start typing because... well... i am just OVER the blogging "scene". im sick of this whole "brand yourself as an expert in your niche" thing (which i totally fell for and started writing posts that i totally hate because branding), and the way that blogs now are just fronts to get emails to promote webinars to sell courses that cost WAY too much money. im sorry if ive offended anyone but thats what the majority of lifestyle blogging has become, and im over here just wanting to write blog posts...
3. i HAVE to stop being so afraid of everything.
i have a really bad habit of not even trying things just in case i might fail. for example: you may or may not know that i majored in fine arts in college. i spent FOUR YEARS making art in a fairly serious manner. i have shared approximately none of it. why? because i was afraid to. i dont know exactly what i was afraid of but i have portfolio after portfolio of art that i never showed anyone, and because i never did i never got any feedback and because i never got any feedback i assumed i was terrible and eventually just quit making art together. well in an effort to be more "me" i bought some embroidery supplies last week to make some embroideries because i freaking love doing embroidery. even though i was super excited to start this project it took me DAYS to share my first piece on instagram because i was so self-consious about it (like, i was finishing up the third one and still hadnt posted the first). you know what happened after i posted it? i got a ton of really nice and encouraging comments from not just my friends, but also from the person who wrote the song it was based on. obviously that made my day and i had a super nerd freak out about it, but also i realized how stupid it was that i never show off the things i make.
what does this all add up to? i dont know, honestly. so far i know it means that im definitely ditching all the things ive been doing that just arent me and trying not to be afraid of failing at that. which is... a lot easier said than done...
so yeah... that was a lot of navel gazing and i applaud anyone that made it all the way down here to the bottom, i know it sucked but i really feel like i needed to get all this out of the way if i want to write any actual blog posts anytime soon. so thanks for sticking things out with my most vulnerable blog post yet!
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