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Friday, September 23, 2016

"Nest"

I'm not going to make excuses, though I do give you my apologies.  I just dropped off the web in August after faithfully posting every week since 2010.  I didn't get a horrible disease or die or anything.  Life just got stressful and I wasn't in a good head place.  I actually wrote posts the last few weeks, but I didn't post them.  Who wants to hear me whine?  I don't.  I'm sick of it.

Yet for all of that, I think people often post only the good stuff in their lives and I sometimes think that maybe we would all grow if we understood that other people have struggles to face even when their lives look perfect and wonderful to us from the outside?

Maybe some of those people actually do have perfect lives.  Good for them.  My life has been more of a challenge -- though the other day I was trying to have a good sulk and kept thinking of people I'm fortunate to have in my life.  I was very cranky that I couldn't even work up a satisfactory pity party for myself.  I decided to take out some of my frustrations by organizing my garage.  It's not going very well organizationally, but I have been burning off some excess anger issues.

There's an irony here too because I recently cleared out a friend's attic, basement, and office/bedroom.  There was a lot of stuff and I happily broke it down into categories and either stored it in better places or eliminated it.  It was so easy and satisfying -- at her house.  It's a lot harder when trying to clear out my own nest.

I'm a secret hoarder.  If you come to my house, you won't see that I have every significant object of my life, countless treasures from ancestors or garage sales, and of course, every art supply that I may need for the next masterpiece.  I'm just really good at stashing things.  I think it comes from having very limited personal space when I was growing up and sharing a room with two sisters.

I think I can be exactly the same way with my mental inventory.  I remember everything.  I've got all those memories stored in compact places in my brain, stacking things on top of each other and hiding them in a pretty box.  There's good things about that.  I've written a lot of posts about happy memories.  There's bad aspects to this kind of recall too.  I remember every awful thing that people have said and done to me.

In my garage, I have a lot of lumber stacked up to maximize the space.  It's mostly stored by size -- which is sort of useful, but not really if I have to unstack it to find wood for a project.  Think about that in terms of memories.  To address a past issue, I have to sort through ALL of my issues to find the thing that I can fix and move beyond.  It's as overwhelming as my friend looking at her basement and not knowing where to start because that was her memories and stuff.  Sometimes I think my brain could be fixed easier by someone else.

Back in May, I told you about a painting I started.  I've worked on it, but not very much.  That too is part of the reality that I don't see on the web very often.  Procrastination, other priorities, laziness, whatever, are a real part of life too.  I'm far from perfect, but I'm working on being better than I was.  I think that's all any of us can do.  I might even get a clean garage out of the process.

8 comments:

  1. How good to see your post Linda....I was beginning to wonder if all was OK but everyone needs head space sometimes. I hope you have managed to sort through things both physically and mentally. Great to see a part of your new painting. Have a lovely weekend xx

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  2. I was wondering about you. I'm sorry to hear that you were absent, not because of travels, but from a black cloud. I've often thought of taking up boxing to exorcise my demons. But, I never have. I'm just usually too tired. Fatigue and other health problems are my personal battle ground. Glad you're back.

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  3. Thanks Sharon! Maybe not a black cloud, but medium dark gray? I've thought of boxing too, but I only want to hit, not get hit :)

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  4. I hoped you be back soon, so it's nice to "see" you! Love the nest. It has monopoly pieces!
    I am the anti-hoarder when it comes to "things". Memories - good or bad - aren't always easy to let go of.

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  5. Thanks for noticing. It's nice to be "seen" :)

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  6. I am glad you didn't die. We can all use some time away from the web to recollect ourselves and work out our issues. To be sure, nobody is perfect, not even those who seem to be. On the contrary, the more perfect on the surface, the deeper the problems are stashed away. Better then to have a garage full of stuff than all kinds of problems inside of you. Finally I agree with you. We can all work to become the better self.

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    Replies
    1. I think I'm working on cleaning out my internal stuff while working on cleaning out the garage. May all of us do some "housekeeping" once in a while!

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