this is what I want to be

I dedicated some time today to finishing up some paintings for a series that has been in bits and pieces all over my basement and in the process I felt this moment of serenity (for about five minutes actually) where I felt so in tune with myself, like wow, this is what I want to be doing...and then I stressed out. Purple paint on my hands and all over the bottom of my feet, I try not to step on the carpet, try not to drip paint from my brush when I go upstairs to clean up in the kitchen sink. Jeff gets a little upset when he sees paint spots on the carpet.

art is a habit. painting is a chore. writing is...cathartic? These are the thoughts that run through my head while I'm painting these fantastical butterflies unmoving in an odd landscape of blue.

Will I ever be in a gallery? Will I ever be brave? Will I ever finish what I started in thought?

Randomly I thought about a blog I created to share blurbs of my book that has sat inside the shelf in my brain for so long. I want to write it in my teens...my twenties? It's getting too late and it's still in bits and pieces in the basement of my soul. So...went out onto the internet to check out my...blog? (can you call it a blog if you never blogged anything?) Luckily no one ever looked at it waiting in suspense for these bits and pieces to emerge.

So here it goes...it's a new year and it's already beautiful. Last year was good and great and awful too. I slowly lost 23 pounds and felt like I fit inside myself again. I painted a lot and finished nothing. I wrote and re-wrote and didn't write but I sure did carry my journal with me everywhere.

Now it's 1am and I am writing. I want to be a writer so I will write. I want to be a painter so I will paint. I want to be a good wife so I will give up the typing, go to bed and sleep in for once. But I'll see you again with the bits (and of course the pieces) that I am ready to give.