August 31, 2001
I had been keeping in touch with an old colleague of mine and recently when I asked if she wanted to get together after work sometime, she replied, “After work? You don’t have an after work. You can do anything anytime. I’m not sure that our friendship can continue because I just don’t know how to react to you anymore. We’re not on the same wave length anymore. You’ve got freedom, time, no pressure. You’re happy and everything is easy for you. I just don’t know how to relate anymore.”
After reading that I was a little confused. Certainly she wasn’t talking about me, was she? Because that doesn’t describe me at all.
But then I looked at my situation from her perspective and how I saw things from the 9-5 world. It was then I understood; because I am passionate about what I’m currently doing, and because I only offer most of the good news (because for the first time ever, the good news is outweighing the bad) everything I do must seem easy. I suppose that’s a credit to me that I can make it seem that way, because the reality of it, is that it is all still a struggle. Only this time, I’m willing to be in it.
There’s still so much that I have to learn, so much I have to grasp. There’s issues that I tend to struggle every day with – like money. My art classes cost quite a bit, not to mention my supply list. I’ve been putting off buying the supplies because I have no idea how I will afford them when my class starts in October. Chris is starting back to school in September and I can see the power struggle over time for the computer already.
If I was in my 9-5 world, I could buy the Ibook that I want within one paycheque. Now, I have to save and wait. Instead of getting praise everyday for a great report I did or how I helped out, I’m getting rejection letters instead. Instead of taking my regular 9am break with the girls to talk, I work straight through on the computer, alone, until 2 in the afternoon. I have constant pressure to come up with wonderful lines of words for deadlines that have no give. I have insecurities about the quality of my work and my creativity. Sometimes this all seems surreal and I feel like I don’t fit in. Sometimes, it’s just all a little too hard.
But, to me, it’s all worth it. For the first time I feel that I am in an intimate struggle and that it is somehow beautiful and meaningful. I feel I’m finally apart of something rather than trying to distance myself from it. I feel like I have found myself again. I feel younger, happier, and I suppose despite all, more free. I’m excited so much more than I used to be and I finally feel like I have purpose. And I suppose that is why I seem to talk less and less about the struggle and frustrations and more and more about the excitement.
Because I understand you can’t have one without the other.
August 25, 2001
I’m not the kind of soul who generally sits around all day and waits for things to happen but over the past couple of years that’s what I did.
I secretly held the belief that someone would come and rescue me from my creative boredom. Someone would discover my talent and unleash it. Something would magically happen and I’d have all the creativity, passion, and excitement I wanted mysteriously given to me. Even though I had always worked for things and created my life, subconsciously a part of me thought that something would just “happen” without me having to make any effort and that working for a dream seemed almost silly.
I remember after I had met Sark, even though I hadn’t ever thought of her helping me before, afterwards I secretly thought the phone would ring, she’d hook me up with the right people, tell me what I need to do and my life would be taken care of.
I waited around the phone a little for a few days before I realised that only I could make things happen by showing up each day and putting in some effort.
That sounds obvious now. But when you have no direction at first, or when things are overwhelming, sometimes you just want to throw your hands in the air and yell, “Here I am! Come find me!”
That is why I feel extremely proud and happy of everything that’s going on now. It’s all happening is because I went out looking for it and I created it. Nothing was handed to me. No one told me about all this or helped me realise things. I showed up. I put the effort in.
That’s big a great lesson for me, and also a sneaky one. Because before I never realised that I was waiting because I thought I was a take charge person. But I see now that I was, even if it was just a little.
But not anymore.
August 23, 2001
I have decided, rather forcefully, to take back my mornings. Or rather, my writing.
Over the past two weeks, I have to admit to doing almost no writing. No writing on this website really, no writing for magazines, no writing on postcards even.
My mind has just been absorbing all the changes, I’ve been finally getting everything together, I’ve been making so many discoveries and I’ve been busy.
And I don’t look at the above as excuses, because they’re not. I think what has kept me busy and occupied the past two weeks have been extremely important. Because I am more than just writing, and I’m finally expressing all that I am.
However, I have missed writing. I have missed my rituals that I did. My mornings of breakfast, yoga, dancing and writing had been replaced with haphazard awakenings met with scrambling for busses here and there to this place and that, for this art interview or that class or trying to deal with everything at once. I haven’t spent much time at home.
But I woke up at 8am this morning, refreshed and ready to go. I moved myself into the den, shut the door, opened the window and put the blinds up, and sat myself in front of the computer. Now I’m ready to take on the morning – even if it’s Sunday.
For me, I need to have the ritual of writing, a time set aside. Even when all I was doing was writing it was important for me to have just the mornings set aside for writing. This was especially odd to me since I had always been a night owl. But the mornings always seemed undisturbed, fresh, relaxed, and it just seemed the perfect quiet time for just me to write.
I think now, it’s especially vital that I carve out time for writing because of all the art classes & programs I’m in – not to mention time with Chris that is important as well. And if I don’t keep the mornings to myself, the writing could easily disappear. The afternoons and evenings always have plans and the end of the day I’m tired and uncreative. But the mornings, their mine, all mine. There’s no excuse not to get up, sit down, and write.
And since writing is so important to me, I have to make the time to do it. If I don’t, then nothing happens, and I feel like I’ve come too far to just let it all go.
August 21, 2001
It’s not just about the writing anymore.
I interviewed for the Docent Program at the Art Museum today. During the interview one of the two women looked at my application and said to me, “I see that you’re a freelance writer, tell us a little about that.”
I told them how I had left Corporate America in April because filing, stapling and collating were not my passions. I told them how now I get to write all day and actually become excited when I wake up in the morning. I told them
I no longer hate Mondays. I told them that my philosophy on writing is to make the ordinary, extraordinary. I told them I was finally happy and felt that I had conquered a huge fear and that I was ready to conquer more.
They were very impressed. They said to me that I spoke with passion. One of the women said, “Listening to you makes me feel like picking up a pen again.”
Then they asked me why I wanted to be in the program. I told them it was because when I began to write I felt at peace and I also felt amazing but asked myself, “Why stop there?” I discovered that I wanted to learn art as well but then I asked myself, “Why stop there?” And that’s when I decided I wanted a career in art and found out about the program at the Museum. I told them that I felt the program was perfect for me because I am so eager to learn and share my excitement and passion for art. I told them how I felt I had always pushed aside my creativity for the greater good of Corporate America but now was my time to learn and indulge. I told them that that this program seemed like it would give me guidance, show me different paths of art and careers in it. It would let me explore, learn and play. I told them that’s exactly what I wanted.
They accepted me on the spot.
Things are coming together and I am starting to form some kind of wonderful beginning. I’m writing every day, I’m being published by two magazines in September and October, I’ve sent out specs to several others and am working with them on being published. I’ve enrolled in two art classes & I’m now in the Docent Program at the Art Gallery.
This would not have been possible several months ago. My mind had different priorities then. Before, I had to worry about keeping my co-workers happy, looking after the office, stapling, how much money I was making and was I being paid fairly. I had to worry about commuting, about buying clothes that were “appropriate” for the office and I had to worry about what my image was and what people thought of me when I told them my title. I had to worry about how tired I’d be when I got home. I worried that I had lost myself and the life I wanted would never begin.
By realising that I am a writer and creative person has changed my perspective so completely. I now realise how much I can do and want to do. I know that going in a new direction isn’t such a crazy and useless idea and that what ever I want to be I can be – even if others don’t see it or believe it.
I realised how listening to my heart and forgetting everything else, makes me feel complete.
August 19, 2001
I’ve been thinking a lot about intent lately. I’m the sort that always believed it was the end result that mattered; it didn’t mean anything if you intended to write an article but you didn’t. But I’m starting to believe that intention matters just a little – at least true intention. Not the kind where you were just plain cruel to someone and then when you realise how much you’ve hurt them you use the excuse, “Well, it was just my intention to give you some feedback.” True intention is sometimes harder to realise.
I think about what my intention for this site was: to get a simply message out. That message being that an ordinary girl, who has no degree, no special education or training, can become something she wants to be, even if it’s completely different than something she ever was. She could be anything as long as she wanted it, and she tried.
I never made this site with the intention of becoming famous, or showing off. I never made it with the intention to have a platform on which to bitch and moan without purpose. I just wanted to show people that dreams aren’t something for other people to have. And although this site is being written about a lot, and I garner some attention once in awhile, the intention of this site is living loudly and clearly and making its mark. To me, that’s perfect.
I’ve had more emails than I can count from people of various ages, backgrounds, sexes, and countries, telling me how this site has helped them. Not one person ever wanted to emulate me or be me. They never wanted to do exactly what I’m doing. What this site did, was give them strength to be them.
The end result followed the intention. And that’s what success is, I think.