my other love

I love to paint. I looooveeee art. I LOVE writing. Really, I love it more than I love painting. It has taken me quite some time to understand this and come to terms with it because "art" has been a definition for me for as long as I've been alive. In kindergarten the teacher gave us a sheet of paper and asked us to draw what we wanted to be when we grew up. I drew the quintessential artist at the easel with a beret and a brush. 

I would love to "be" an artist more so than I already am, to show in galleries and get my work out of the shadows and into the eyes of anyone who would appreciate it. 

I vowed to be honest here so this is the part where I will talk about my frustration and my fear, my utter disgust with myself at times. Clearly there is a lot of art in the world. There is a lot of shit art and a lot of so-so art and even more incredible, wish I had half the talent, make me want to cry art. I take it all in and it can be very dissatisfying. Why bother? My good friend and former college co-pilot, Jenn, shared this pretty incredible blog with me by a beautiful artist which really got me thinking. It inspired and for once made me say hey, I can do this stuff too! I'm an artist, I have talent, what am I doing? Really, what am I NOT doing?

As for writing...wow, I think it's harder to be a writer. I haven't even tried to make it as a writer because it's so scary. I love it so much, the creation of people and situations all under my control, moving and speaking and lying still at my discretion. I have stories inside of me that beg to be told and I'm afraid to whisper them because someone else probably already told them, but better.

Like the novel...my novel I call it. It exists. It is unfinished. 

I mentioned this vaguely but I always wanted to write (and clearly have published) a novel when I was a teenager. Obviously that didn't happen so as I grew up I thought, okay in college I will have a novel published! Um, well okay, how about in my twenties? Yep, in my twenties I will definitely have a novel published and that will make it even better because I will be in my twenties. 

I'm twenty-eight and I turn twenty-nine next month. Time is giggling at my naivety. Um...thirties?