Sweat It Out

It's one a.m. I'm lying on my bed in my dumpy, leaseless, un-air-conditioned West Hollywood room where, due to an early September heat wave, it is approximately one-thousand degrees outside and exactly one-million degrees inside, trying to start this blog and wondering where the past five, ten, fifteen years have gone. This room also serves as my studio, so I'm surrounded by books and printers and tools and frames and boxes of paper and art supplies of all varieties. There are half-finished projects littered across my desk and throughout the room, sometimes on top of said books and printers and paper and art supplies, sometimes a few deep. The walls have zero vacancy. There are more projects on the floor. I'm lying here amidst my organized chaos, my ancient MacBook breathing fire onto my belly and into my face as I try to figure out where to start, or what it is, exactly, I even have to say.

What I'm trying to tell you is: I'm sweating, Dear Diary, physically and emotionally.

I dared myself to start this blog and refused to re-launch my site until I had at least one post and I'll be damned if I'm not finally following through, months and months after this resolve, of course at the 11th hour. I'd love to tell you it's because I'm finally feeling confident and secure in myself and my work and my words, but my brokeass is out here attempting to believe in myself out of sheer desperation. The coffers are dry, there are no jobs in LA, and I'm sitting on a ton of work people might actually like if I give them a chance to. Why does doing the most obvious thing feel so hard sometimes?

I'm 41 years old and I still have not fully internalized that I am an artist. I was a very creative child, I went to art school, I have talent across a range of art forms and mediums, I've had many jobs in the arts, I have made and sold work and I've been on and off the stage since I was in my teens. And yet. I have no idea who or what could give me the validation I presumably need to just embrace this part of myself without question or judgement at this point in my life. Maybe it's because I work so slowly. Maybe it's because I'm a jack of all trades and master of none. Maybe it's because I don't feel like I have anything of value to say. I know these are all defeatist lies, vestiges of my upbringing, bullying tactics of capitalism, but still, maybe, maybe, maybe.

I keep getting struck by this sensation, like there's something rolling around in the backseat of my mind that I keep trying to reach back and grab, some sort of time capsule of my former self with the answer inside if I could just get a grip on it. Sometimes I think I recognize the clinking noise it makes when it reaches the edges -- little auditory ghosts patiently calling out clues. I'm trying all the time to remember who I was at 19, at 26, at 33, trying to remember how much easier it felt to take chances and put myself out there. How much easier it was to just do and create. What happens when we change? Does a little part of us die? Or does it carry on, unburdened by time, consistently messy and free, happy to meet up for drinks and nostalgia sometime if we can just figure out how to get in touch?