Tied up

I was wrong about the dreams. Something is obviously up. Who is Lillian? Is she my art? Squeezed, pressured, and damaged? Why do I feel that way? This two month stint does keep me in limbo about my own sense of where I am. What am I doing in NY? Just trying to cover rent? Just trying to stay here? I know mostly it's about being an adult. But I can do that anywhere, and most anywhere else for less money and less hassle. I had a dream not last night, but the night before where I knew I wouldn't last a year here. That by June I would be out, moved. Not that that is how I want things to go, I plan to keep feeling it out. But this absense makes me so doubtful. So doubtful! It is just a stepping stone. In the end I find myself frozen because there are choices. It's easy to throw all your energy into something when it's the only way. But what if there are a million ways and I have to choose one? How do I know what to choose? I could go further north, further east. I could move out west... Or spend time in Europe. Moving east is more likely than the others, it incures the least expense. Right now that matters. I enjoyed working for Jonas. So many things didn't pan out. Jeff is funny, he's kind of checked out. He just wants to paint and has lost any discipline or will to do any other work. He doesn't have to be realistic...yet. I spent five years floundering in that state. The world is agaisnt us. To achieve what we perceive as our purpose we have to take some unwelcome paths, and be seemingly off course, maybe for a very long time... And then I remember choice again. I remember that I don't have a premade purpose or a groove prepared for me in this life. That each day I choose that purpose. In each day I have the power to make it something different. More than anything I have guideposts or proclivities that help sway me in more specific directions. I'm good at art, I like art, I'm trained in Illustration. Past choices have led to these experiences and qualifications. I can expand my experiences. I do. I've learned how to be a hostess, and now a receptionist. In some very weird way both of those facts give me a lot of satisfaction. I did something new! I learned it. (Even if for only two weeks.) I was still competent. For my own sake that is the material point. I proved to myself I was capable. I am capable. These discoveries make me stronger in myself, more confident. Every day, every month, every year brings new challenges that I choose to rise up to or let pass me by to face later.

I'm going to be upset until I work this out. Which I can probably expect to last a couple months... I can't make up my mind about how to handle sending out my work to publishing companies. I'm not fully satisfied with the test print-outs I did on my own printer. Which may be because the scan quality wasn't great. I should try a print out of something I know is high quality to answer that question for myself. I'm so hesitant with this process, I hang back and feel a reversion to action. Why? Ultimately it doesn't sit well with me. Still, why? (Well, work will be a great self-therapy session if nothing else.)

A full time job (no matter what type) can be such an easy way to check out. My days are full, I can just let myself slip into the routine and even the time after work is geared indirectly around it. I neatly prepare at night for my morning needs in relation to work. I don't do anything of significance in what free time I have. I read, that is good, but that seems to be all. Maybe for a time it can be excused, understood, accepted?

I squeezed myself like a little sardine onto the train this morning. What a change from yesterday. We waited ten minutes for the L. Very odd. It was there yesterday when I got down and full of breathing room. Do so many people actually get Groundhog's Day off? Wild.