Nowhere feels like home anymore.
Aether and Earth (Astral Union) Oil painting, work in progress details.
This piece is special to my heart. It’s finally almost done, after half a year (!) of struggling with anxiety and creative/writer’s block, being overwhelmed with so many things in life. And so, more than the idea it encompasses within the world of Arcanum of Thorns, it has become closely tied with my creative path and artistic principles.
When you see the creations of an artist, you see an easy flow of wondrous ideas manifested into reality; it seems effortless, but the reality of it is much more different. Everybody's fighting their own fight to make it in life, and it’s easy to be paralyzed by all the expectations and pressure you put on yourself. Even if you do want to pick up the brush or pen and your imagination is spilling over - you know you don’t feel that spark, that inspiration. If you feel lost and drained, what could you possibly offer with no embers to flare into a wildfire? And it’s also easy to hide all these challenges when you do rebound. But the truth is, everybody struggles with it.
So, lighten the mental load. Remember why you do it. Because you enjoy it, because you love it, because it makes you feel alive when that magical world is set on fire once more inside of you.
Do it for you, because this is why you are here.
“...and I don’t know what that means, if I’m too broken or I won’t let myself be unbroken, because that implies stitching all the aching parts back together and risk being shattered again. And I can feel it, I can feel my heart racing and panicking at the idea of such vulnerability again, I can feel it twist and struggle against any restraints ever again, never again, never again. I can feel it ready to turn stone-cold and withdraw back into itself.”
He watched her with eyes too soft, making her want to both harden into ice and spill apart. “But walls are as much barriers of protection as of imprisonment,” he cautioned.
Her eyes narrowed, and her voice suddenly chilled him: “It is the me that is left--scarred, tough-skinned yet so much more broken. And I will hold no shame in what I’ve become. You have turned me into this.”
- unbroken, Lumen
I love waking up this. So many May sunrises woke me just long enough to capture the rosy twilight back into my dreams.
The best family isn’t tied by blood, the best family is the one that keeps choosing each other day by day.
Last year, I learned just how far I'm willing to go to achieve my dreams. I reached deep inside and found a reservoir of strength I'd never realized before - because I'd never taken such a mad leap of faith only to subsequently end up hitting rock bottom.
For a while I thought I'd never get up again. Scrambled for a leeway, a loophole, a way back up again, into the neurotypical dream of financial, physical, emotional security.
I struggled with . . . the reality of not succeeding. Not failure, because failure means you gave up and stopped trying again. And I have not and never will stop trying.
Last year, I made big mistakes. Big enough to leave me grappling with anxiety and depression, wondering if this one leap of faith has messed up whatever progress I'd made.
But you know what? With these big mistakes, I also learned . . . that it's okay to fuck up! It's a part of being an adult! Sometimes you make choices and follow paths that you do need to follow. But they'll turn into a damn mess. And that's okay, because it's a part of the process of growth! Of getting better and wiser. How else will you gain the experience?
It might seem like a hopeless dead end, or a stale impasse, or you might just find yourself sitting in your bathtub and wondering what the hell you're doing with your life. You may not see it at the time, the point of it all, a way out, how you can overcome it all. But you will. There's always a way. And one day soon you'll wake up and think back and understand and have no regrets. You made it after all. There is value in each lesson.
So what I've learned in 2017 is this: Make mistakes. Terrible, glorious mistakes. Live, be alive, make the most of it. Fight for what you want. It's all a part of growing, growing, always growing.
What last year has taught me 4/1/18 // Journaling Challenge @journaling-junkie
#journal#artjournal#journaling#journaling-junkie#writings#writer#journal challenge#selfcare#meditation#2018#blog#writing#(i originally didnt wanna share this since it's so personal and basically an excerpt from my diary but you know what it's the raw truth and#it's these things that are most powerful)
3/1/18 I write to heal myself and others.
@journaling-junkie ‘s Journal Challenge