While the end of October is not a usual time for annual reflection, to me the end of October feels like the end of a cycle. The months between October and April feel like a deep slumber, a time for reflection and setting up the hypothetical garden for the following season's offerings.
However, this year my garden stayed slumbering well into July, with sprouts not beginning to appear until mid August. I spent much of this year feeling inadequate and invisible, a ghost passing through and going through the motions. I think I can partly attribute this to not being on social media. I have been on Instagram since I was 12 years old, and this past August I turned 25, which means I have spent more than half of my life concerned about online perception and confusing it for my real life worth.
I hate to sound cliche, but when I turned 25 I *did* feel a shift. It wasn't immediate, it wasn't like "Well today I am 25 and my world view has completely changed" but it was a gradual gut feeling that something needed to shift. Have I done much with that gut feeling? No, lol. But I've started drawing every day again for the first time in years, I've been painting a ton. I've been letting go of what I think my art should look like or be about based on things I had decided in my head that literally don't matter. In school we were taught to consume almost as much as we create and I think over the last few years, I have spent so much time consuming and being inspired by other artists that it turned into comparison-- and I no longer felt capable of creating things myself. Which is so silly !!!
So anyways, TLDR, I'm soooo back. I have been painting a lot. Here's something digital though. :)
