Real real bad.
As in.. I just don't.
(I am today though. Read on)
I looked at some of my "recent" posts sporadically from months ago and really see how much blogging has taken a back-burner as my other commitments engulf my life. I used to blog every day and now I blog a few times a year. I guess that's a pretty good thing though - that I have other things to do and all.
I started blogging many years ago as a way to start tracking the recipes I was creating and sharing random jibberish thoughts in my head that I felt I needed to write down. A place to write things down and come back to later, because having a private journal that I shared with no one and would probably just loose anyway didn't really do it for me. My recipes were mainly so I would remember them in addition to sharing with others who always asked how to make the healthy but delicious looking food I was posting on social media and who actually cared enough to know what's happening in my life. I never knew what blogging really was until I had to create and manage a blog for a monarch research project I was a part of back in 2013. I snuck in some creative DIY posts on how to give yourself a "monarch manicure" by painting your nails with a monarch wing pattern on them - quickly reaching hundreds of views in a few hours, but the scientific advisor of the project requested I take my unconventional non-research related posts down as they weren't appropriate for our page. So I needed an outlet to share my creative endeavors somewhere else and my own blog was born. (I actually re-wrote that monarch wing nail tuturial here if you're interested in reading it)
Blogging was my hobby in between somewhat normal types of jobs with somewhat regular hours where I actually had down time for "hobbies" like blogging. These days though, I don't have much time for "hobbies" anymore. My creative endeavors that once were hobbies are now my job. I'm an entrepreneur now. A few years ago I didn't even know what that word meant. I went to school for science, dabbled in short term research projects where I could frolick with butterflies, sunbathe on the beach with endangered shorebirds while shoo-ing the Jersey shoebies out of their nesting habitats during the busy summer season, do the stingray shuffle with my favorite sea creatures in an educational touch exhibit and run around in a giant shark costume, and later spent years managing projects in a couple of butterfly and spider research labs. I learned all the admin and management skills I needed to gain some organization in my scatter-brained creative mind and then ran off to be a full-time artist, almost feeling like I've thrown away everything I learned in a prestigious university's science program. Unusual? Not really. I guess Millennials are doing all kinds of unexpected hippie dippie shit these days, but the more unusual part for me is I've actually found some success (and TRUE happiness) in what I am doing now without having any professional experience or coursework to run my own business. I never ever take a day for granted that life has thrown curveballs and disappointments and pleasant surprises and weird twists and turns to get me back to the first thing I ever wanted to be when I grow up... an artist.
Last year - 2019 - started off with me laying flat on my face thinking I was a failure. I feel like I was some sort of version of Kristen Wiig in bridesmaids when she hit rock bottom and lost her job and her boyfriend and all her friends except maybe it wasn't actually THAT bad because I hadn't alienated my friends or my husband. I just felt so sad and depressed and crappy for what had been a two year period and just couldn't shake it.. it may have been my lowest emotional point in my young adult life. I spent a couple years getting rejection after rejection for a bunch of animal welfare jobs I really had thought I was made for. Right at the start of the new year, a psychic told me it wouldn't matter anyway because I would wind up being a teacher and using my creativity for a new career. I didn't believe her at all (teaching?! I thought??) and almost let myself drown in my own tears, until I decided to use the tears to water a new seed I was planting and instead worked my ass off to continue building and growing the art "business" I had already been doing as a side gig for years. In just one year I accomplished more than I ever thought I would be doing with my art in my entire life, as I never actually pictured myself being an artist professionally.
Within the year, I started at rock bottom of depression and picked myself up to grow from my low-point instead. I raised thousands of dollars through fundraising for animal organizations through my Painting with a Pit parties. I was unexpectedly contacted and offered a job at Painting with a Twist BECAUSE of my fundraising parties I was doing... and became the teacher the psychic predicted I would, working there when my busy schedule allows to get out of my artistic hermit mode buried in my art studio where I usually can be found - and I surprisingly LOVE entertaining and teaching a bunch of drunk people and helping them paint! I was offered a contract to work for Chewy, one of the largest pet retail companies in the country, painting commissioned pet portraits for their customers. I had my biggest solo art showing at Satchel's Pizza where I sold more artwork than anyone ever had there before. I did new art shows, new festivals, re-opened my Etsy shop after 8 years and got lots of new sales moving, painted my first paid mural jobs, sold my first piece with 4 figures, did live painting at an event for the first time, was featured on TWO local radio stations, was interviewed on a podcast, started my own YouTube channel, started an email list with almost 200 subscribers, created several logo designs, illustrated a scientific coloring book that got published, got my art into several new shops and galleries, and made enough income to support myself and my family solely off the regular commissions I get to paint custom pet portraits for clients.
BAM. I am not one to brag, but it isn't often that I actually sit down, stop what I'm doing and write down everything I have achieved. I used to be one to sulk and hate myself for the things I couldn't achieve and focus on the things I felt I wasn't doing. I am hard on myself all the time and never give myself credit for things. I just get frustrated I don't have MORE time to do MORE. I want to volunteer more. I want to cook more. I want to vacation and travel and do whatever I want. The good news, is when I manage my time well, I can reward myself with these other endeavors. If I accomplish extra projects in a week, I treat myself to a Disney Day. If I actually push through to get some work done during daylight hours, or I don't, but I pull a productive all-nighter (happens fairly often), then I put aside time to make a really enjoyable and creatively demanding meal because I do love to cook. In between making social media posts for my business I manage social media posts for my local shelter and help organize fundraising events throughout the year that helps animals in my community for various organizations. It's a ton of work and time, but when I am short on time and have a lot to do for the animals I just stop sleeping. I really only sleep for the weird dreams and half the time I don't remember them anyway. The benefits of being self-employed are endless, and besides the few things about it that suck the hardest (like taxes, having to be organized, and learning better time management), I may have finally found my niche of where I belong and what I'm actually good at. Other employers may have not seen my worth but thank goodness I pulled myself out of my low point so that I can be the one to see and evaluate my worth - which is a fucking lot.
A friend of mine who was one of my best friends during the time I did the stingray shuffle on a daily basis and ran around in that shark costume (or in other words, I worked at an aquarium), is well on his way to becoming a famous actor out in LA and has inspirational daily Bruce videos on his IG account. He's shared enlightening thoughts and attainable goals in mindfulness that are uplifting and inspiring. Enough to pull yourself out of the sinkhole you've been living in and remember that your life IS worth living and that every day is something to be astounded at. If I may repeat his words in verbatim, or close enough at least, he said, “Your existence is a chance of 1 in 4 trillion (the number of sperm your father ejaculated into your mother). You can look at life as if EVERYTHING is a miracle or as if NOTHING is a miracle. I choose to look at life as if everything is a miracle”.
Dude. That's something. I literally live a miracle every day and you do too! If you don't.. well, why don't you make some changes and do something about it? Change your life into being one you actually can wake up each day feeling proud of and so in awe of. For me, the fact I can stay up til 5 AM every morning, watching Netflix show about alternative realities and quantum physics while throwing paint around to create the things people PAY me to make, then wake up whenever I want and start it all over again is astounding. That I can hang out with my dogs in PJ's all day, and my crazy blue hair that's actually now turning green and no one will judge me or tell me to go home and change because, well, I work for myself! That I can make ridiculous smoothie bowls and vegan lasagnas and homemade plant-based foods that no one's ever heard of and then be one of those people that takes pictures of my food and posts it to social media. I will continue being one of those people, not because I actually give a shit about what people think about ME but because one in every handful of people that sees my posts actually reaches out to me to inquire about being vegan, or at the least, eating more vegan food in their diet. Which in turn, saves more animals. Fucking cool right?
If you take away anything from reading this entire post.... I'd say just remember that life is what you make of it. It's very likely I had some other intent or purpose in making this post to begin with but, I've already forgotten you see, because of the scatter-brainedness thing I suffer from, ya know. And maybe I'll actually get back into blogging one of these days, but I probably won't get away from my rare once-in-a-while-post-about-some-random-vegan-food-I-made-or-that-random-trip-to-the-mountains-with-a-bunch-of-vegan-eating-experiences-that-are-worth-sharing-or-something-like-that.... basically, a post every few months sharing something somewhat interesting or not interesting at all. I never intended to start a blog to actually make any money anyway (even though the sparse pennies that roll in from my Google Ads don't hurt..)
ANYWAY. Hope you enjoyed this. Maybe. this may have been one of the most "real" kinda posts I've written in a while. Leave your thoughts in the comments if you'd like!
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| I've never been more happy about being the "real me" than I am right now. |
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