What I’ve Realized Or Epiphanies

(Note: I started this post on July 25th. And then I had trouble finding words, so I saved it for later. It’s now later)

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking. I guess a lot of seeking inward, asking myself things I didn’t even realize I was asking.
Here’s what is coming up so far…and I’m sure there is more, deep down in the dark places, in the muckity muck.

I don’t give myself permission to be creative. I think and talk and write all about how much I want a creative practice. How I want to live a creative life. How I want to spend every day, every moment that I can in my ‘art cave’ making art, writing, art journaling, crocheting, whatever. And eventually in the end I have rarely made it in the door, let alone pick up the brush or a pen. I end up with some excuse of why I couldn’t shouldn’t haven’t don’t, etc. But the bottom line I think is that I don’t feel worthy of it. I don’t feel worthy of giving myself permission. I don’t feel worthy of having a creative life.

My Story. I have been thinking about this too. I am being to realize how much I don’t feel like I have the right to own my story. I had been told so often that I was wrong, that it wasn’t that bad, that I was making a mountain out of a mole hill. All that caused or causes me doubt my own reality. Like what if they are right? Please understand, there isn’t anyone in my life right now that is saying my story isn’t my story. I’m talking about those from the time it was happening that said those things. But I think it has put me in a place where I feel like I don’t have a right to it. I had been told often, during that time, that my story didn’t happen the way I remembered it. Therefore, it was all in my head. Like it never actually happened even though it had. Other people in my life have been “holding the pen” and have tried to write my story to fit their purpose. To make themselves looking glowing and to make me look crazy or just make me look like I am lying. It’s a long long road coming out of that.

Then there is the writing fiction. I Finally! watched the videos for “Idea to Outline” with Sage Adderly. I don’t know how many times I might have signed up for these sessions. But I finally watched one of the sessions, I finally made time to do it. Why don’t I watch the seminars like these when I sign up for them? Because I don’t feel worthy of give myself the time to do so. It feels indulgent. There were a few “a-ha moments” watching the 3 videos. I think though, I ended up with more questions with perhaps some insight.

It was a similar experience to a ZOOM call I had a few weeks ago. Probably around the time I started this post. Which is probably one of the things that prompted it, or the beginning of it. The call was to see if the class she was offering was a good fit for me and me for the class. In the call, we touched on why I hadn’t taken one of the Intentional Creativity classes offered by Shiloh. The main reason, the biggest reason is money. Money that I don’t have. BUT. And there is a but, I often feel like even if I had the money that I am not worth such an indulgence. It feels like such a big splurge. At the same time, even though it would be an investment in myself and in my dreams, I don’t feel like I am worth it. This can be said about any class offered by any teacher.

There is another thing, though. I feel guilty when I do allow myself to paint or write. I feel like I am supposed to be available to all the people all the time. That I have no right to want to do things for me that make me happy. How dare I want to take time for me and to pursue my dreams. It always seems like no one wants or needs my attention until I start doing something for myself. I have a list of art projects that are either planned or started that I haven’t touched. I have a list of crochet projects, that I either have planned or haven’t touched. For example, the half made hedgehog for the Little Monster. Or the only gesso’d plaque I am wanting to make for Little Bug’s room. Let’s not even mention all the started and stopped fictional stories I have attempted over the last oh 16 years or so. I can’t even remember the ones I might have tried to write in my teens, or the poems that are now lost to me from back then.

As I am writing all of this, I am remembering things. Back to when I wanted to go to college and I enrolled. It was something I wanted to do for myself. And my mother discouraged me at every opportunity because it meant I wouldn’t be available to her to use. I wasn’t totally sure what I wanted to study. At the “encouragement” (insistence) of my now ex, I started out in business management. I did well, made the dean’s list. But it wasn’t where my heart was. I honestly wanted to just be a liberal arts major, now that I think back about it. (I still do.) I was trying to please him. When I wasn’t doing well in Algebra, which he swore up and down to help me with but instead belittled me and stopped short of calling me stupid. I wasn’t getting help from him and neither from the professor. I ended up switching majors. Again, not to what I wanted but it was at least closer. I never finished my degree because after that we ended up moving out of state and I couldn’t get to the closest college.

But I’m straying here. My conditioning to not do the things that make me happy goes all the way back to my childhood. I was my mother’s pawn. I could only do what made her happy. I didn’t get to really have friends and do things with them until I was in high school. Even then, she had to go EVERYWHERE I/we went. Chances were good that if she couldn’t go then neither could I. She even kept me in a physically abusive relationship with a man, for reasons I will never understand. Every time I got out of it and ended it, she pushed me right back into it. But that is an entirely different post.

What it comes down to, I think…is that I don’t do the things I love and that make me happy to please other people. To be physically and emotionally available to other people at the drop of a hat. I don’t do self-care, I don’t do the things I love all for the pleasing of others, whether real or imagined. And because I don’t feel I am worth it or deserve it.

It’s a full moon and a blue moon. I let go and release this shit. Because it sure as hell doesn’t serve me, never has or will.

Oh…
PS: I missed the entry deadlines and didn’t get my photos submitted to the fairs. I let time get away from me. So, I will take the next year to work on getting some print worthy photos to enter.
Y’all better hold me accountable to that😁💖