epiphany of a starving artist

daily melody: Blitzen Trapper "Furr"

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I'm home. In my home town. In the house I grew up with. The structure that houses my teenage angst, the fights I had with my father about my curfew and my boyfriends. The rooms that I did homework in, played pretend with my sister, snuck downstairs to go on AOL Instant Messenger when I had school early the next morning, and have moved on from.

I don't harbor the same feelings I had when I would home from college and stay for the weekend. Or when I would have sleepovers in the livingroom when I was young. I suppose one reason could be that I usually left to hang out with friends or go get coffee.

I've cried twice today at it's only 2:22pm. One of joy and one of sadness. But the tears of an epiphany are going to open doors for me, because I am ready to begin to explore the new corridors that I will embark on and walk through. I am ready to open new doors for myself because I am ready to be emancipated from the conventions that the world feels I should be placed in.

I had an epiphany today.
I am not meant to go down a conventional path.

I am an artist.
I'm not a state minimum-wage fast food minion.
I'm not a retail tool to get corporate bonuses for my supervisor.
I am not an eager-to-please cutout of a college student.

I have issues with this life and I think these issues are just helping melt away the layers that I have put on myself, that are not cohesive to who I am or who I want to be. Maybe those layers need not serve a purpose for what I will be doing, and how I am living.

I'm not average.
I have talent.
I am going places. [France included...someday]


...and I am going to sell my art.

Having conversations with both my mom and my boyfriend, Nicholas, put things into perspective for me. I want to be successful, comfortable with a home, car, and a life where one can pay the bills and not have to worry about if you've over-drafted on your debit card again. The thought of paying for the entirtity of living by myself [and with the assistance of Nick], health insurance, and life in general is very daunting. I want these things [as well as a small studio, preferably at the Delevan in Syracuse]...but I think the key to how I will get these will be through a more personal, adapting, and unconventional manner than how our conservative and dying country wants.

We no longer live in the iconic American Dream anymore.
The average American can't afford a house let alone one with a spacious backyard, within a reliable and reputable school district, a working automobile for both you and your spouse, affordable healthcare, and still have enough money for you to take an annual vacation from your awesome career you got after getting your bachelor's degree.

I'm not that.
You may not be that.
We don't like in that........and we never have.

I am going to strive for a life that will work for me and the joys I have in life.
And art is going to be the method for me.

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