New Year, Old Place, Impossible Dreams, Charmed Life
Summer was, all in all, a great success.
Which is what I've been telling everyone who's asked. "How was your summer?" they say, and I reply "Awesome." In the past summers have been more of a grey area, punctuated by good things, relaxing stretches but watered down by a lot of bored, lazy days. This summer was non-stop, crazy, exciting and...inexplicably, undeservedly good. (As in, where do I get off having this good time? Part of me says I worked hard, I earned the break, but another part says, worked hard doing what exactly? Studying? Keeping out of trouble? Being a hopeless antisocial? Was my life craving balance, payback, growth?)
"How was Japan?" they ask, in addition, or instead, because the new school year means talking to a lot of people about something I was doing four months ago, something that's faded into a blur for me. I say "A big party," or "crazy," or "amazingly unproductive", because it was.
I haven't really had class, or homework, or extracurricular activities for a long time. It's a little jarring coming back to it, but I'm not rusty. I can't be rusty. Because this isn't just another semester, not just another school year. This is the last school year. This is the semester that defines so many art students, and most of my peers had the previous semester, had the summer, to prepare.
I find myself using that as an excuse. And yet, I shouldn't, because I don't regret that time I spent, lost, out of the world. I needed it more than I could have imagined. I enjoyed it too much to ever regret. I profited from it greatly, even though it was mostly in ways I can't produce tangibly. I did some crazy stuff. I can't use any of my experiences for my thesis, and my instinct tells me not to care, because even if this is a defining semester, how can it compare to the last year, which defined my life.
I'm grateful, I guess, is what I'm saying. I'm grateful. I'm in awe of the world in general, I'm in love with people, and I love my home.
I'm still lost. I keep wishing I could just be back in Tokyo again (and I am, whenever I close my eyes), where life was simple and crazy and overstimulating. It was fun, but it was lonely. I missed people, my people, people I wanted to meet and get to know and spend time with and care for. A culture I understood and fit into. Still being lost means I'm also still lonely.
I'm lost to this work I'm tasked with producing. This semester when everything falls into place and I figure out what I need to do, and the world opens up for me. I'm afraid it won't open up, that I'll claw at the entrance and my fingers will slip on the edges and I'll be stuck. Again. That I'll make a stupid mistake and lose everything I worked for.
I spent a lot of time last year regretting things I'd done and said and getting bogged down by this vision of the future I'd had and how my life wasn't playing out the way I'd wanted. It a long time to convince myself I was going to need to scrap that future and hope for a better one. And then, as soon as I let it go, here was the present, this fuckin' amazing life I'd never noticed before. Lately I've been going along without much of a plan at all, and things have been (and I hate admitting this) falling into place. (And I keep looking over my shoulder, quite literally, wondering if this is some kind of joke, because life was never this good before, or maybe I was just too distracted to notice.)
Japan was planned, but all the things I did there were spontaneous and reckless and pointless. The summer was planned, but loosely, and played out largely on luck. This semester so far has had little to no planning whatsoever and I find it's been helping me not be so pissed about things that I can't help. I had issues with controlling my future and I think I'm starting to get that I can't control everything.
But what does that mean for the future I'm working towards? Illustration major, it's in the name, I'm studying to be a businesswoman, an entrepreneur, to stride forth and take my success by the reigns. I need a plan. That requires a certain attitude, I think, that I had in the past. Now my attitude is different. What's in store for me, then, I wonder? How long will my good fortune hold out?
LIFE GOALS (for the next couple years, at least)
I want a job--any job that pays, really, even though I poured out the dough for this degree I wonder how much I'll even use it.
I want a family--any kind of family, preferably made of people I trust, care for, and enjoy, connected by blood or love or anything in-between.
I want to be an artist--well, illustrator, I don't care much for the gallery scene, but I want to make stuff I care about...even though it's my major I'm not the best at delivering the illustration that is the perfect match for the assignment, ever, I always feel like I'm off. Sometimes way off, and I feel like if I cared enough I could push my way to the top but I just...I have a life and interests and needs and there just isn't time to be happy and be the best.
Comics--Not sure what I want here, specifically, in regards to comics. OK, I claimed comics. Early on, somewhere, I made the decision that this was what i was gonna do, and so far I've stuck to it, but again, there's good and bad, and if I fit in there somewhere it's not at the top.
I guess then, my goal here, is to improve. That's all. Just keep working at it.
Which is what I've been telling everyone who's asked. "How was your summer?" they say, and I reply "Awesome." In the past summers have been more of a grey area, punctuated by good things, relaxing stretches but watered down by a lot of bored, lazy days. This summer was non-stop, crazy, exciting and...inexplicably, undeservedly good. (As in, where do I get off having this good time? Part of me says I worked hard, I earned the break, but another part says, worked hard doing what exactly? Studying? Keeping out of trouble? Being a hopeless antisocial? Was my life craving balance, payback, growth?)
"How was Japan?" they ask, in addition, or instead, because the new school year means talking to a lot of people about something I was doing four months ago, something that's faded into a blur for me. I say "A big party," or "crazy," or "amazingly unproductive", because it was.
I haven't really had class, or homework, or extracurricular activities for a long time. It's a little jarring coming back to it, but I'm not rusty. I can't be rusty. Because this isn't just another semester, not just another school year. This is the last school year. This is the semester that defines so many art students, and most of my peers had the previous semester, had the summer, to prepare.
I find myself using that as an excuse. And yet, I shouldn't, because I don't regret that time I spent, lost, out of the world. I needed it more than I could have imagined. I enjoyed it too much to ever regret. I profited from it greatly, even though it was mostly in ways I can't produce tangibly. I did some crazy stuff. I can't use any of my experiences for my thesis, and my instinct tells me not to care, because even if this is a defining semester, how can it compare to the last year, which defined my life.
I'm grateful, I guess, is what I'm saying. I'm grateful. I'm in awe of the world in general, I'm in love with people, and I love my home.
I'm still lost. I keep wishing I could just be back in Tokyo again (and I am, whenever I close my eyes), where life was simple and crazy and overstimulating. It was fun, but it was lonely. I missed people, my people, people I wanted to meet and get to know and spend time with and care for. A culture I understood and fit into. Still being lost means I'm also still lonely.
I'm lost to this work I'm tasked with producing. This semester when everything falls into place and I figure out what I need to do, and the world opens up for me. I'm afraid it won't open up, that I'll claw at the entrance and my fingers will slip on the edges and I'll be stuck. Again. That I'll make a stupid mistake and lose everything I worked for.
I spent a lot of time last year regretting things I'd done and said and getting bogged down by this vision of the future I'd had and how my life wasn't playing out the way I'd wanted. It a long time to convince myself I was going to need to scrap that future and hope for a better one. And then, as soon as I let it go, here was the present, this fuckin' amazing life I'd never noticed before. Lately I've been going along without much of a plan at all, and things have been (and I hate admitting this) falling into place. (And I keep looking over my shoulder, quite literally, wondering if this is some kind of joke, because life was never this good before, or maybe I was just too distracted to notice.)
Japan was planned, but all the things I did there were spontaneous and reckless and pointless. The summer was planned, but loosely, and played out largely on luck. This semester so far has had little to no planning whatsoever and I find it's been helping me not be so pissed about things that I can't help. I had issues with controlling my future and I think I'm starting to get that I can't control everything.
But what does that mean for the future I'm working towards? Illustration major, it's in the name, I'm studying to be a businesswoman, an entrepreneur, to stride forth and take my success by the reigns. I need a plan. That requires a certain attitude, I think, that I had in the past. Now my attitude is different. What's in store for me, then, I wonder? How long will my good fortune hold out?
LIFE GOALS (for the next couple years, at least)
I want a job--any job that pays, really, even though I poured out the dough for this degree I wonder how much I'll even use it.
I want a family--any kind of family, preferably made of people I trust, care for, and enjoy, connected by blood or love or anything in-between.
I want to be an artist--well, illustrator, I don't care much for the gallery scene, but I want to make stuff I care about...even though it's my major I'm not the best at delivering the illustration that is the perfect match for the assignment, ever, I always feel like I'm off. Sometimes way off, and I feel like if I cared enough I could push my way to the top but I just...I have a life and interests and needs and there just isn't time to be happy and be the best.
Comics--Not sure what I want here, specifically, in regards to comics. OK, I claimed comics. Early on, somewhere, I made the decision that this was what i was gonna do, and so far I've stuck to it, but again, there's good and bad, and if I fit in there somewhere it's not at the top.
I guess then, my goal here, is to improve. That's all. Just keep working at it.