One of the worst things is falling asleep at a decent hour, waking up in the middle of the night and not being able to roll over and fall back asleep no matter how hard you try. They say you’re not supposed to look at the clock to help or that you should get up after an allotted amount of time and go on about your business until your brain feels tired again, but the thing about that is you never know when or if you’ll be tired in time to get enough rest before you have to start your day again. It’s as if your brain needs to work some things out in the awakened state that it wouldn’t otherwise be able to do while you sleep. I always figured that sleeping and dreaming was how the brain cleansed itself of worry, but that is apparently not always the case, so here are some things that have been running around in my head.
Earlier today (or yesterday, rather) I did a whole lot of nothing. The original plan was to go to the Peach Festival, but that didn’t happen for reasons I don’t care to elaborate on. I spent a lot of my day in my large walk-in closet because for some reason, it gives me solace. My closet is like a bathroom, in a sense. It gives me a place to think, reflect, and get my shit together. I imagine this is due in large part to the fact that as a child I played in my closet, and it was comparable to the back of the wardrobe in The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe. It was my space to be whatever I wanted and to go wherever I pleased. Lately, anytime I’ve gone in there, it’s to write. I don’t write anything of much substance or that I feel anyone would care to read. I write to get anything out that I don’t know how to deal with and close the book and somehow that makes whatever my problem at the moment is better as if it were to somehow magically solve it. In a way, it does. The only down side to this is that if someone invades this writing space and reads it, it leaves with an open wound the size of Jupiter because unless it’s meant for sharing or written for others, it’s too personal. It’s not personal in the sense of secrets, but in way that when I write to work things out, I’m working on raw emotion. That’s a huge part of myself that is given up and open for criticism in the wrong eyes. It’s rough to open myself up to that sort of thing. I imagine it’s part of the reason that I don’t get into design work as much as I should which leads me to my next thought.
I bought cinnamon whiskey the other day. I had the great idea of mixing it with apple juice because if we speak seriously, I’m not getting any younger and the thought of shots of cinnamon whiskey don’t really do it for me. I ended up mixing it with some apple flavoured beer someone brought over for dinner. It is quite possibly up on the top three for my favorite drinks right now. It’s delicious even if it’s not inventive or creative, but it makes me feel like it is. And in my one glass of what I refer to as “adult apple cider”, I came to conclusion that I need to be creating things. I need to be making, doing, inventing, and getting messy. All of the time, I thought I had no desire to design because I didn’t like the idea of working for people. The real reason is that I can’t take criticism very well. I do know one thing though. If I’m good enough, I won’t care about the criticism as much because far more people will “ooh” and “ahh” and my work instead of telling me how much it sucks. After figuring this out, I did the only thing I’m really good at. I went out and I spent money on art supplies and crafty things because that’s what I should be doing. Art is expensive, and the reason that’s the case is because it’s expensive to create. So I’m on a new road to adventure now.
I feel like I’m a paint bucket filled with colors that has fallen off a ladder and created a beautiful mess on the ground. Instead of having it cleaned up, it was left there because it created such a burst of color in an otherwise dull surrounding. And that’s what I am — a burst of color. I know that I can bring joy to others if I can hold my breath, create, and exhale once it’s completed knowing that I created something great. That isn’t to say everything I come up with will be a masterpiece, but I’m certainly going to keep going until I physically can’t anymore.
Rachel Lies 