Habits, the ghosts that haunt

This post is a little different because there are no pictures. That’s okay because this is about art and other things. So, today, it’s a writing post inspired by Amanda at Write Alm. Thank you. By the way, I do not write on a regular basis so this makes me feel a little cyber-shy but here goes…

I’ve been blogging for years but mostly with my photography business which I have finally, seriously finally, decided to let go. I’ve been blogging on our family blog for probably two years as well. Now, as of last November, I began this blog. I’ve been aching inside, miserable. The last few years have been very tumultuous, dark and scary. You know, the world inside our heads that we don’t talk about. Somehow I got off my path of creating. Ironically enough I think it really happened during art school, feeling the pressure to do something ‘that would make money’. I was a proud artist. All I ever wanted to do. I remember drawing since I was four and somewhere along the way, in art college, I stopped. I took up photography because I was told I had a good eye for composition and ‘it’s something you can make money with’.

I’ve live in fear my whole life. This fear was the building block of which my early years were solidly built. It’s been a strong foundation that consciously, I didn’t even know I was so heavily rooted in.

Through the darkness of the past few years I’ve read a lot, yogi’d out, meditated and found a new way of life, new beliefs which are stronger than those created by Man alone. It has been a long journey and mostly been travelled alone so it’s been tough but, thankfully, along with the fear in my bones, is determination and a hard head – I don’t think I would have survived without either. I guess you live your life long enough and the voices start to call out for you to hear and if you don’t listen those voices start to chew away at your insides, making you feel empty. Rotted.

I know, I know, I am being a little obtuse here but for me, I’ve already shared a lot.

I believe it was Dec 31st of last year as we were playing Scrabble as a family, that I suddenly became melancholy. I don’t know how it started but a dark moon can do that to me and the dark moon was just a day away. It hit me, I did not see it coming. Here I go again, another year, still the same. Still not making art, really. Still working a retail job just to help make ends meet. Knowing, partly, it being a blessing to be able to home educate even if the ends barely meet. Totally worth it. But still, making those ends come together in retail was just killing me, day by day and my soul had been crying out to me for years to stop but I didn’t listen. I had to make money and I was rotting out.

I was bothered because the first day of January was to be a new moon, a new year and a new start and I felt like I wasn’t new at all, in any way.

I realized then, somehow, that fear had gotten me where I was. Fear and guilt. Wow. All my life I thought I had lived strong, my own life, doing what I wanted and thinking what I wanted. How silly. Suddenly, I realized I was where I was because I had made choices that others expected me to make, based on fear, and guilt. Didn’t want to disappoint anyone, or be wrong, feel foolish for doing something different and have someone say, ‘I told you so’.

You know, if you do what you want and you are happy, who cares what anyone else says.

So, Fear. You suck. Guilt, as one of Fear’s best friends, you suck too.

In the four days now since I have come to this realization I have spoken my mind, but without hurting others. I have made more time for myself and it has felt gooood. I have begun to free myself from the ghosts that have guided me up until this point. I feel like I have been reborn. Gee, I guess that’s why it’s called that. But, no, not reborn in a Christian sort of way, not that there is anything wrong with that…

So, this habit is being broken, day by day. And each day, my soul seems a little bigger and I feel a little stronger, proud even, for finding my way. That little girl in there that never got a chance to be a kid, well, she’ll be okay. She’s free to be.

xx