I give up

So here I am, sitting in my new living room, starting another new phase in my life. The past 7 years has been all about major transition. I moved 14 times just to give you an idea of what I mean. But somehow in the midst of all those moves -three of which involved changing states- I went pretty numb artistically. Oh, I had a few islands of creative out pouring, but they felt more like trying to come up with something, than to get something down before it flew away!  Seriously, -the best art is more like catching something passing by, passing through one, than actually Creating it from nothing with a capital C, like an ego driven extrovert with a God complex. Its more about being humble and serving the muse, at 3 in the morning, or instead of ones "day job" if that is what she demands.

 I did manage to accomplish a lot of things in the eyes of the world, though the last 3 years have seemed pretty hollow. I finally got my bachelors degree, ended two unhealthy and stagnating friendships, and a marriage, lost two beloved animal companions, unexpectedly got one back two years later, started a new relationship with a longtime crush, healed old, broken down methods of familial non-communication, amassed student loans enough to fund the moon launch in the sixties, and both walked away from and rediscovered the joy of creativity and making art about 6 times, before calling it quits altogether.

 Let us just say that there was heart ache, despair, depression, and a complete and utter lack of HOPE, vision, opportunity or direction. There was ineffectual medical advice, more debt, at least 3 bogus employers, two good ones, a few amazingly supportive friends, and an "Art Class" that lassoed and regulated my creative voice to such an extent that I was left so empty, disillusioned and used up, that for the entire next year life was with out hope, or meaning, or purpose. I really just wanted to just die, and swore off art, artsy-ness, and creativity for good.... and yet here I am two years later and all that inner artist crap is leaking out around the edges again.

I SHOULD have my nose to the grind stone. Again. still. forever. some more. I should be getting another "Real Job" since the call center thing crashed and burned when I walked out in the middle of my shift last month. I didn't even stand up on the desk and sing Lion King at the top of my lungs first -or anything else I had planned for my supreme exit. I just cleaned out my desk, and my gym  locker, wrote a letter to my supervisor about why they could all shove it, and quietly went home without ceremony. What a sad, unfortunate Walter Mitty Moment.

Since I've been home again, in a home I like for the first time in over 3 years, I have been cooking a lot, wild, delicious concoctions designed to stretch my dollar, - did you know they frown on giving you food stamps if you quit a job? Understandable I guess, to many free loaders, but I WANT to work! I don't want to be an artist. I don't want to stay home bored and alone all day, and have to be creative about how to make ends meet. I don't want to be self disciplined and try to create pop culture arty-ness in a rental unit where I have to worry about the carpet. ITS JUST NOT PRACTICAL...

But here I am, my head near to busting with ideas and opinions about everything this week, for the first time in over 2 years. Everywhere I look, every conversation, every groceries list, or mundane facebook post  has elements of artist inspiration woven through it. Its all to much to even try to catalog, it is a heady, manic, euphoric feeling after years of striving in the artistic desert of despair. I can't seem to capture it all in a sentence, but I want to get some of it down before the muse forsakes me again. Try as I might to conform, and be Normal, and fit it, and pay my bills, and go to the gym, it seems I am destined to be a loud, non conforming artist with wacky ideas, living from a soft heart moment by moment, for better or worse. I give up. Do you hear me universe!?

Fine. I will write something. OK. Fine, I will cook a new dish. OK, fine. I will get the paints out. Fine. Whatever. I will open the project file of the old ideas I never had time to get to...