Im late on the draw, but on fresh starts (and snow!). Love, Emily ----------------------------------------------- I was driving home in the snow, thinking about how I hadn’t written my blog post yet. Trying to be inspired by my surroundings. Mostly I kept thinking about how anxious driving in the snow makes me, and how it could be a good Grow topic on letting go of what we can’t control. Then as I parked, I stepped out with a satisfying crunch into a white blanket and realized I wanted to write about fresh starts. I’ve been thinking about starting over a lot lately, and how I feel like I do it a lot. I had a manic episode during my first month of school, and after being asked to leave or be hospitalized, I chose to leave. I moved out of an apartment leaving four exhausted and bewildered friends for a single room, and I went on a week long road trip with my cat and a packed car. I drove through Colorado and New Mexico, letting a (fresh start) new medication sink into my bones; begrudgingly I came back to school with a little more hair on my mania-inspired bald head, and a lot less money in my wallet. I thought coming back to school after a block off and an out of state adventure would be a fresh start, all would be forgiven, and friendships would be repaired. It didn’t happen that way. It took me about another month to finally return to the apartment to see those girls – all of whom I love but needed space from, about three weeks to look the counselor that told me to leave in the eye, and a good two months to finally feel settled into my new room. My eating habits were off-kilter because of a lack of money, time, and drive, and it’s apparently hard to get yourself to exercise when you’re no longer driven by manic energy and a seeming super strength. I felt myself, even this month and on medication, producing strange work. My professor told me I needed to edit down. Print with clean borders – I thought of snow here – and make an honest effort to write down an idea and know I would always be able to come back to it later. Apparently wanting to print in twenty different directions, even when not in a manic state, doesn’t seem entirely normal. I had texted my sister about halfway through my last block telling her I finally felt like I was getting a fresh start. I was seeing a guy I really cared about, I had cleaned my room, and I was finally cooking for myself again. On a hotplate this time, instead of a nice apartment kitchen. But we make do, I suppose. What I wish I didn’t have to admit is that this fresh start only lasted a few days. I sunk back into sleeping little, working too hard, and stressing over things that were out of my control. I wasn’t not taking care of myself, I just wasn’t doing a very good job. The happy ending, though, is that with the snow-covered ground, I have successfully finished a block feeling good and without extensions for the first time in a long time. My professor even seemed satisfied with my very genuine effort to edit down. I still didn’t sleep the night before the show was hung, but I did hang clean prints, no ink smudges or anything. The borders were still crooked, but I’m doing my best. To return to the maybe cliché metaphor, pure white snow gets slushy and gray, but we keep going. And I am so grateful for these fresh starts.
Posted on: Mon, 25 Nov 2013 07:05:00 +0000
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