"I have been away from Studio Friday for a while, and I really struggled with the toot your own horn topic. It actually made me do some free-writing and I thought of another topic that might be helpful for some of the studio friday artists: Fear.
On the lighter side, I am afraid that my studio will never be big enough, and I fear I will eventually run out of paper or gel medium or glue dots, which is totally unrealistic given all the stuff in my crowded room.
I could also talk about fear of the blank page or artist's block but right now, it's about so much more than that for me. It's a topic I am grappling with all the time these days. Being in my 40s has been a real turning point in how I spend my time - an awakening of sorts, to how fast life is flying by. I truly can't believe I'm in my 40s. Just yesterday, I was in my 20s with time to waste, and then, where did my 30s go? In my 40s, I am impatient. I am much less tolerant of chores and things and people who waste my time. This may sound cruel, but it's not meant to be. It's really just prioritizing.
I just finished a book entitled "The Moth Diaries" by Rachel Klein. It's the story of a diary kept by a teenage girl at boarding school, and in one passage a character says "You wake up one day and you're just like them -- amazed not to have lived the life you imagined you would. Do you think anyone is satisfied at the end?"
...and that is my biggest fear... that I will wake up one day, much older, having spent 21,900 hours doing laundry, and 6,240 hours cleaning house, and 63,000 hours at the wrong job, and I will regret that I didn't spend all those hours more meaningfully, .. and that's assuming I am lucky enough to grow old....
And then I iimmediately feel miserably ungrateful, because I really do have a great life - a wonderful husband, a beautiful little home, a great job, good friends and family, my health. But still, I fear not spending the time I have from this point forward on the really important things - my family, friends, creativity, health, community.
For those of you with children, you may feel differently. Raising a child, putting another human being on this planet, is to me the ultimate sacrifice and also the ultimate gift to humanity (well, sometimes.) But I chose not to take that path, and while I don't regret it, I wonder, then -- what is my purpose, and is what I do ever enough?
...Incidentally, I didn't really have any artwork in my studio that illustrates this theme, so I am posting a note that a friend slipped under my door at work one day when I was talking to my creative coach on the phone. She's really a very supportive friend with a scathing wit.
I also love the website www.despair.com, which plays fun at those motivational posters with de-motivational products. I love this kind of humor and these things never cease to amuse me... I tried to post a few of my favorite posters, but they must have it blocked, or I am an idiot... (entirely possible, and I'm sure they have a poster for it!)... so here are the links to my favorites, related to this theme...
regret
fear
failure
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