thirty five.

January 26th, 2011

58



It’s been over a month since I turned 35, without a moment to really sit and reflect. 35! How did that even happen? I don’t know if it’s January blues or what, but I’ve been thinking a lot about everything I’ve done and everything I want to do.

I’ve spent years creating, sewing, weaving, dyeing, collecting vintage, making huge art installations, singing in a band, dancing all night, traveling, belonging to art collectives, not belonging anywhere at all. I’m so grateful for my journey but it’s definitely where I’ve been and not where I see myself going.

Lately I’ve been updating, sweeping, cleaning. Looking at what I want to do – it’s an open space. I’m closing down the Etsy shop this weekend – and I’ve been selling vintage online in one form or another since 1996. It saved my life more than once, to have that income to fall back on. There’s something about saying “Ok, no more” that really means that I’m ready to stop just surviving, ready to stop scrabbling and rag picking to make ends meet.

I also have so many personas, none that feel disingenuous – but certainly they are at war. A permanent struggle between the princess and the feral child. I’ve always walked the line of high powered career professional life and “extended time off”  - a wild time spent bouncing between coasts, spending my days wandering. I’m at a point now where I don’t have that luxury, and need to focus on my career. But what really does that mean? How can I funnel the skills and experiences of the last 15 years to create a sustainable path for myself? At 35, I look around me and I see everyone doing, and making. And I think “So many people are doing and making. So I don’t need to.”

There’s something about the constant information stream that overwhelms me – the same images, styles, art, creation. There doesn’t seem to be any space in the homogeny, but the expectation is that one should be a part of it. Well, I’m not so sure about all that right now. It doesn’t make sense to me, so I’ll wait until something does.

Milla’s post about teenage artists really got into my head about the way people interact with art and identity now. I can’t even fathom never ever knowing the way it feels to discover something, to truly have to dig and seek out inspiration, to be the only person who knows about something. That magic, that sense of identity, that absolute wonder – it’s impossible now. Growing up isolated, when I discovered something, it was MINE. There were no blogs curating inspiration, the same photos and clothes and colors over and over and over again. When I unearthed an unknown artist or style or film, it resonated with me in the purest sense – there was no one else to tell me otherwise, or to overwhelm me with their fervent interest in the same things. They gain so much in the connections, teenagers today, able to come into their own so quickly, able to form a career at the age of 18. But what is lost?

As more of my interests become mainstream, they simply get left behind. It’s as though the commonplaceness of them makes them less magical. Sometimes I’ll be looking at Tumblr and all I can feel is a sense of futility – at everything being so common and universal that there’s barely any point in existing at all. There are moments where I can feel my heart beating wings against invisible bars. I’ve heard people talk of a “cage” as if it means a job, a house, a relationship. But those things aren’t cages to me anymore, not in the way they once were. I feel more suffocated by the sheer volume of sameness I encounter every day. Should I feel like it’s a tribe? Maybe, but I don’t. It just feels overwhelming, and dull, even in all the prettiness.

So in that world, What The Hell Am I Here To Do is the screaming question that comes out. I cast little thought-nets out and catch bits and pieces but nothing solid. So, I focus on my current career, on my health, and just enjoying life the way it is, right here and now – taking extra special care to notice the moments when I feel happy, energized, excited – and sewing those moments together into a concrete path.

10 mundane things I’d like to be better at:

1. arranging flowers
2. taking my vitamins
3. biking to work every day
4. communicating clearly
5. being totally confident
6. making friends
7. being healthy
8. dressing fancy
9. being grateful
10. doing what makes me happy

{edit: I want to be clear that I’m talking more about my reaction to a perceived loss of identity – not that it’s bad to like popular things – but that for me, when I don’t feel a total passion or urgency to add my voice to the clamor, that IS a loss, because there are themes and concepts I felt very wedded to, and now, for whatever reason, I don’t feel inspired by or compelled by. That was totally not clarifying. Ok!}

Tags:  thinkings