I’ve spent my summer in a bit of a slump.
My whole life just seems a bit slumped.
I’m still waiting for that moment where I discover I’ve grown up.
Like this should all be leading up to adulthood and it’s not.

I feel like I’ve spent the better part of my life working & waiting for good things to happen, so a life I loved would somehow fall into my lap.

I’m not saying I’ve been lazy, I certainly haven’t.
I put myself through 5 years of collage as a single mom, I averaged 3 to 4 hours of sleep a night. I finished with a 3.84 grade point average.
That’s not lazy.

But I couldn’t find a job afterwards.
Because I couldn’t or wouldn’t sell myself or my work.
That’s a lack of confidence.

I didn’t find the contacts I wanted and needed,
or make a lot of friends.
And that’s because I’m awkward as hell with people.

I’m can be easily discouraged, but thats still not lazy.
But it’s probably been the biggest factor of my downfall.
I allowed other people to discourage me to easily, I asked them to define my value, and let my own perceptions of what they thought limit me.

I always wanted to be an artist, and artist of any kind. Someone who made things.
Beautiful things people would want and cherish.
But I took to heart what my parents had told me that there are only two types of artists in the world.
Professional and Starving.
And the world only had room for a handful of the first, so unless you were really really good or really really lucky, you better have a back up plan.
I understood that as “you in particular better have a back-up plan.”
So I could make things, maybe great things, but only as a hobby.
Because grown-ups need a real job.

So I did the stuff I thought I was supposed to do, I finished high school, got a job, fell in love, got my heart broke, found a slightly better job.
And all of that time I was somewhat unhappy because I wanted to be somewhere else making. Be somebody else.

I had hoped the design/web thing would be that thing, where I got to be creative – enough. Where I got to make – something. Maybe it still might. Maybe I just need more practice.

But for now I’m going to focus on something I can do today and commit my self into my knitting. And hopefully by the end of the year I will have a functioning retail site.

I’m well aware my ingrained awkwardness and low self esteem will always be obstacles. But I need to do something, I need something that gets me up everyday (besides the dogs).
Something that helps make me independent again  and helps me find a place I really feel I belong.

Much of this new passion has been spurred on by several online classes I’ve been taking about selling one’s crafts. And a very supportive community of other crafters.
But another driving force has been a recent trip up north to Grand Marais on Lake Superior. A lake, no matter where on her shores I come too rest I feel at home.
I still want to travel and see Europe and Ireland and maybe even still Japan.
But I don’t want to come home to here. To my current life.
I written about my growing dislike for living in such an urban area, that’s definitely part of it. Living somewhere I can see the stars at night definitely appeals to me.
No, instead I want to come back to that lake. Where I feel I have the best chance of finding a life I’m never tired of. Maybe even where I am supposed to be.

I’m kind of tired of playing it safe, and saying things like if I just do this for another (insert number here) years I will be able to do this thing I’ve always wanted to do. So I will be more aggressive. I will throw my self out there more. Maybe that(insert number here) can be made smaller.
I know this will be hard and there may be much suck ahead of me. But I owe me this much. I owe that dreamer I used to be this.
My parents may yet be right, but I will happily embrace the life of a starving artist over this backup plan with no heart, if thats what it takes now.