the place to start is likely just to eat and sleep and probably laugh a good bit. that’s the place to start. a few nights ago we couldn’t sleep, so we took a midnight walk. my boyfriend expressed very real new job anxieties. i said that a routine is too harsh for the human spirit. we’re doing everything right in this little container and suddenly we’re filled with terror. random fears we never experienced before. the rules of every single day create more things to be afraid of. we are doing things right—up on time, work is completed, bed is made—and yet still, immense fear of something impossible. the day inside of a container. it’s brutal. i have gamified much of my life—known that the world responds to how much of yourself you’ll put up for play. some of my time, some of my posture, some of my brain i exchange for a decent bank account, new clothes, job experience, whatever. i know that if i just suck it in a little bit, i can get the things i need. no one needs to know my personality, or my passions, or my life. just know i went to school here, have experience in this, and will absolutely make that phone call. i have considered life an exchange program. i exchange one personality for an easy-to-project-onto- personality and in turn receive apartment rent, studio rent, car maintenance, clothes from the urban outfitters sale, and all the art supplies i want and need. seems really simple. sure, i’ll do all the little linkedin learning videos, i’ll give a silly answer during the ice breaker, i will schedule meetings and check ins. i don’t care. in my soul, there is the world. this is just what we’re doing when the sun is up.
it is really, really simple. but they don’t make anything simple on this godforesaken earth. it’s like how i need to change my password every 60 days and i have to remember all these godforesaken passwords. or how i have to keep an eye on my bank account even tho there’s no reason to keep an eye on bank account because there’s fraud charges. and the mechanic fucks with you because you’re a girl and i can’t figure out why life is just stuck on this shit. life is just stuck on the semantics, the mechanics. the parts that shouldn’t get more than a cursory glance. work is beating my ass with a stick, absolutely begging me to fold. i think any sensible woman would quit her job if she had seen more than one man jacking off in her place of work. and yet, i persist. try to make it work. try to feel like i deserve this.
what’s worse—my art is becoming less comprehensible by the month. i am in my artistic impotence era. i have no meaningful connection. my substack is of no consequence, my posts on instagram are of no consequence. i don’t mean everything i made two years later and i don’t know what to do about that. some of the work i’ve made has made it so i have to block random people because they ask personal questions about my life. a stress i could have avoided all together if i had never posted in the first place. what do i want? all of my life, i had wanted to make Good Work. all i wanted was to Make Something Good. over the weekend, i finished building a table out of paper and learned to pour resin by watching some youtube videos. my boyfriend was watching football on his phone and would look over at me just hovering above my table, taking it in. “just watching it?” yes, i was. i couldn’t believe i’d made something like that. i was impressed by myself. 15 minutes of pride, and then we turned off the lights in my studio, locked the door, drove home. of no consequence. i built it and then it was over.
what is me? who am i? what do i want and can i have it? where did i go wrong? why can’t i find a path that creates meaning to me?
i’m going to lunch and then i’m going to send some complicated emails and then maybe plan the weekends library events and then? i’ll take a fucking walk.
I relate to this so much, at least the first part where you're doing everything right but it all feels wrong. I hope the op keeps making art, I think it's about the process more than the results