Last night I was told I need to get out of my field, meaning my line of work. I told them it’s not a field… it’s purgatory.
Oh sure I put on a brave face, I opening joke and smile about my troubles. I pretend to have some sort of meaning, and convictions. These are my daily delusions. They get me through my more pathetic moments... the moments that I look at my life and start to think about how badly I am failing this test. I need these justifications and delusions. I need them to keep going. I need them to stave off the depression that would engulf me if I actually looked at life in the buff and saw it for what it is. If I saw all of my shortcomings at once, I’d never get out of bed again.
So please forgive me for not knowing what I want to do with my life. That decision doesn’t come easy for all of us.
And forgive me if I try to figure it out by making clothes, and drawing and painting, and dressing up for Halloween and indulging my creative side. The epiphany? It’s still there. I won’t be happy until I’m doing something with my hands. I need to make a physical product. That’s the rule. That’s all I’ve got, handed down from the heavenly ether to me.
Perhaps you know what that means, and how to implement it. Perhaps you know how to make a golf skort design marketable to the world, and who can manufacture it, and how to promote it. Because I have a great little design for cute skort, but I don’t know what to do with it except to wear it golfing.
Maybe you’ve never been stared down by a blank piece of paper. You might not know what that’s like, to be defeated by a blank piece of paper. To look at it, command yourself to make something of it and break. Such a simple unimportant task and you fail at it. Maybe this has never happened to you, buts it’s happened to me. And it doesn’t feel good. If I tell you about my words, (yes I’ve taken up drawing form my words again) please don’t dismiss it, it’s a big step for me towards getting over my fear of the blank page.
Yes, I know I’m failing. I’m more disappointed in me than you are. Trust me.
I just think at this point I need to hang on for dear life. I’m just trying to get through this. I know it’s not working, but I’m still trying, I’m still going. Despite failures and set backs, I dust of my sketchbooks after years of neglect and I put pencil to paper and try again. So please understand how scary that blank page can be when you’ve avoided it for months. And please give me a little credit for putting something down on it. When that blank page glares at you and you’re able to put anything down on it… good for you. That’s one monster down a sketchbook more to go.
