Being self-employed is liberating because of the flexibility but it can also be challenging to find motivation, drive, or even a mere will to keep working.
My will has becomes especially faint for a myriad of reasons but one being because my personal relationships with people who are important to me are not good. It started with my family issues, my mom saying horrific things I don't even want to try to remember. Followed by Dec-Jan being the month of so many deaths in my life. The rest, I can’t even deny that it’s not of my own doing because I’m pretty sure I am responsible for the rest of the chaos.
There are days I’m so consumed with my thoughts, everything is cloudy, my judgement and it’s like I am trapped in my own head, paralyzed by my confusion while I am trying to make sense of all the voices. I don't mean voices like I hear dead people. Just conflicting desires.
I find it helps to write my thoughts down, talk to friends on the phone, and when words fail, I've been blacked out and doodling a chicken scratch idea of a dark comic strip. Which was a complete delight to find a few hours after waking in the midst of a very painful yet familiar hangover.
Once I write out everything, I start to find clarity, and it's like I'm walking through the haze. Then other issues I've been ignoring start to come forward. I can almost feel my brain's neuron's change because my current mentality is familiar. I've been here before. I was born a hopeless romantic. But then I imprinted on my college sweetheart who turned out to be an abusive alcoholic asshole. I vowed to not let myself do that again.
Each time people hurt me, I built up another wall.
From the writing and help of my friends, I've accepted my feelings, I've identified the delusions, but it doesn't change my belief that I'm never going to get over this one because he's the one who brought me back.
All I can do is focus on my other loves so that I have a way to channel my feelings elsewhere.
I decided to make a list of short term goals:
This month, trying to focus on my 1st arts&crafts booth & coming up on top. Another booth in March. April, I will return to camming for my bday month, but I no longer care about rank. I already feel different but I'm still not well. Looking forward to catching up.
This doesn't mean I wont be on prior because I still have bills & rent while I try to pursue my creative endeavors.
If April goes well, May, I want finish my children's book. I have the rough story layout done but visualizing the details is different. I need to stew on it. Maybe a booth in June or July. But I really want to finish this book by the end of the year. #gameplan
Bucket list (originally written to someone else, he's never seen it, so I'm sharing it publicly instead):
I want to have my own booth at arts& crafts festivals all over the country. maybe do so in a big RV. I want to paint&draw my way through Europe while visiting all the different art museums. Travel the foot steps of the great masters before me. Learn to ride a motorcycle, to drive stick and to get my pilots license so that I can chase the sun with a big airplane. (I've never seen a plane until I was 7 because my grandparents worked for the gov't in a no fly zone).
I’ve always wanted to understand 5 languages, currently at 3 but I will settle for 4.
I don’t want to color in the lines, I want to form lines with colors and just once, I want to be able to wake up to the sun rising over the east river.
*deleted an idea because I wont share an unexecuted idea with the internet* in hopes of creating a huge social media notoriety for a day to bring attention to me and my artwork.
I want a house with a secret room, not a dungeon per se something softer, but a safe place where I can let my beast out.
I want to dance with the northern lights.
I want to know what it’s like to have an “open relationship” where I am able to talk and explore about sexual desires freely. But from my past experience I’m possessive but I don’t want to be that way. I admire relationships where people can talk sex and think of it as separate from feelings. With you, it’s the closest I’ve ever gotten to feeling sexually liberated. (I'm a little embarrassed about admitting this one publicly but whatevs no shame).
I want to write a children’s book, the premises has been in my head for way too long but it lacks a conflict.
I want to not only write the lyrics of a song, because it’s like writing a poem, but I want to compose a song.
I want to get to the point where I have a creative team executing my ideas for me like michelangelo or aiweiwei because my visions are so clear but I just don’t have the time. I really want to make clothes, costumes and to design my own scent.
I want to try “panhandling” for a day, not begging but with an instrument (this is the reason I was learning harmonica and uke) or sit with my art, and see what happens.
My drive to create tells me that eventually, I’m probably going to want to raise my own kids, adopt or go the old-fashioned way, but kid(s) is not what I want now, nor even in the next 5 years because of all the things I want from my own life. But I want them because I want to know what it’s like to love children. I want to tell them about my grandpa. Love them the way he loved me. (This is not something I wanted even 1-2 years ago, but people change).
I want to feel and experience what the world has to offer, I want to visit as many places as possible and I want to love with every ounce of my being because once again, I believe that the meaning of Life, is Love and the connections we form.
My tattoo is now, a reminder that when love finds you, not to be too afraid to let it in. Don't create pain because pain is inevitable. Nothing beats the beauty and bliss of falling in love.
"Paris is something you feel". I understood it because it's how I feel about NYC, and it's how I feel about Love. It's just something you feel. You can fight it, but fighting it is .... I don't know... not fun?
I've accepted that I don't understand it, and I surrender.
I've shut lovers and friends out for way too long.
Thank you for saving me from the shadows of my demons. You will always be my Superman.
~Acceptance
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