Never too late

 I often ponder on my potential as an artist that my grade 10 design teacher used to speak of. That if I continue practicing my skills and continue applying design and art principles, I could become very good. But somewhere between 16 year old me and 25 year old me, I lost that hope in that I could actually succeed as an artist. Or succeed at anything really. Somewhere along the lines I started believing that what I have to offer is of no value to the world. It saddens me, because here I am almost a decade later, pretty much having given up on that dream. Actually I don't know if it was a dream as much as something I had a talent for. But it often made me feel at peace. Drawing and painting I mean. 

There have been many times when I've considered changing careers to pursue art. I know I'm capable of it. And I have a degree in design, so at least I haven't derailed too far from that path. But a big part of me fears that once I become successful as an artist, I'll despise it as much as I now despise being a fashion designer. I mean I still enjoy parts of it, but the deadlines and clients and time management of such a large quantity of stuff still burn me out very frequently. 

On the flip side, I've learnt a few useful things about myself. 

The first being that although I perform well under pressure, I can't do that sustainably. I exist much better when I'm living a slower, unrushed lifestyle. 

The second being that, something can be a dream job before you accomplish it, but once you do accomplish it, you realise that it's not actually what you wan to do. For the longest time I believed that if I was just making cool dance costumes I'd be content with life. But once I got that job where I was making cool dance costumes, I realised that as much as I enjoyed the work itself, the lifestyle of a costume designer was not the life I wanted to life. There are too many other things in life that I'm passionate about and want to explore or spend time on, or places I want to go. I REALISED THAT MY DREAM JOB AND MY DREAM LIFE DIDN'T ALIGN.

Thirdly, to not see a change of direction, or pivoting your life as a failure. As someone who was raised by boomers, I've been brainwashed with the idea of a 9-5 job and that everything else in unattainable and that you just have to accept the fate that life has thrown at you. That life sucks but you just gotta deal with it because that's how society works (pun intended). Or rather that you can't get everything that you want in life. That it's not realistic to get any of what you want really. Anyway, there was a lot of pessimistic mindsets to unlearn that I'm still working on. But I'm too stubborn to give up. 

The point is, I see changing directions in life as success because at least I tried something and realised it wasn't for me, and had the courage to not stay in said situation. (I think that's another one of those unhealthy mindsets I initially learn from my parents, to stay in situations that no longer served me instead of moving into the next phase of life. These days I leave environments/places much quicker, but sometimes it's still a slow process). 

The fourth and last thing I'm mentioning for now, is that it's never too late to go back to things you loved earlier in your life. You can always pick something up again. Start again. Reinvent your previous way of doing said thing even. And that's what I'm planning to do. To throw myself back into creating art. Or rather creating anything except clothing. Drawing, painting, digital art, writing poetry, making stuff with clay. That's all I can remember off the top of my head for now. And I'm going to try and just create for the sake of creating. Be playful. Try to find my inner child. See if I can "find myself" within my existing being again. 

That's all for now 

Peace out :)

Janie