Well, here I am on the last day of November. This is my 17th post for the month. I fell short of posting every day, but I posted more this month than in the past 12 months combined. This is good. The point was to post more, I did. Now to focus on keeping it up and keeping up the quality of the posts.
Today feels like the last day of the month before the beginning of another month. I feel like I am caught in between. Stuck in some crevice of life. In between a rock and a hard place. Trying to find my way to the next horizon.
I submitted some of my photos for the school faculty/student holiday art show today. It will raise money for the art club, so that is all good. But I had a really hard time with it. Choosing how big to blow up my prints, or not. Deciding on a monetary price for the creativity that comes out of my heart. I really struggled. I almost didn’t follow through. Seeing my photos blown up into prints makes me feel really good. Putting my art out there with everyone else’s is somewhat tortuous. I actually found myself mentioning to several people close to me today that maybe I am not conceited or confident enough to be a real artist. If so, what the hell am I doing as a Fine Arts major?!?! I am a creative, or so I think, and people tell me. But I also know I am very practical, down-to-earth and an entrepreneur. I’ve worked primarily for myself almost all of my life. I’ve decided to do what I love and figure out how to ‘monetize that $#!+. But today, I find myself questioning all of it. I’m trying to hard to break away from deciding what I do based on other people that I don’t know (yet) – the infamous ‘they’. I’m trying really hard not to sell out my dreams and just be practical. There is an element of goodness to practicality – a necessary thing – but it doesn’t drive us. Life is too short. Stress is poison – it kills. I’m also trying to not live my life based on comparing myself to anyone – except in a healthy, observational way – a way that I can learn from and grown from as I move forward. But today is very difficult for me for some reason. Seeing all of that art, and mine amongst it, made me feel a bit ill. Should it make me feel more excited? Or are these huge butterflies a good sign? A sign that I’m stretching myself, pushing my limits, growing to new heights? I guess time will tell. I have hopes and dreams and some of them feel like they’ve just been yanked out of my insides and thrown out on a chopping block for everyone to see and dissect.
In school news, I have just 2 exams, 2 papers and some loose ends in photography I class to tie up and I’m done with this semester. Bring on December, bring on a month of more free time, bring it all on.
It’s a tough balance isn’t it: practicality with passion; confidence with a good dose of humility. Trust me, you balance it all so very well.