Why Start Now?

Thinking back on the last year, my first year of being in my 30's, everything has changed. It's remarkable. I know a lot of people might think that starting to paint or learning to play the guitar or beginning your novel you've always wanted to write is something that should have been figured out long ago. That waking up one day and deciding to do everything you've ever wanted, deciding to be HAPPY, is a task for twenty something's with dreams of grandeur and unrealistic expectations of life. Well, to all those who happen to believe these things, I'm here to tell you how very untrue all of it is. You CAN wake up, change your mind, change your life, and you don't have to be too young to rent a car to do it.

Painting, sketching, taking photographs and building mixed media pieces has become such an important part of my life that I'm not sure how I ever survived without it. I considered the hours I spent on the computer, building a world only ever realized in my mind, people whom existed solely in behind my eyelids; making them real enough to touch. Tangible evidence of my thoughts rambled on in various folders tucked behind names that seem inconspicuous. Things like "Important Docs" or "Bank Statements" so no one could see but me... it hurt to have to hide them. And when I woke up that day last June, my "MUSE" painting sitting at the foot of my bed, I made my decision:

I would write without shame, paint without caution, learn to live life as my best self.

The self I was as a child, that thoughtful, inattentive, living-in-wonderland, red-headed little spit fire of the girl I was. I shook my past self awake and told her it was time to start breathing again, that this was her moment, that she needed to begin moving with me, thinking with me, let me live as she does deep inside my mind where I'd banished her for 17 years. I brushed away the cobwebs and apologized for keeping her a secret, said I was sorry out loud for all the time I'd wasted not letting her out, not living the way I needed to be happy, those years spent in the dark... I was in the dark with her too.

And now my days are filled with colors and life, a love I feel for myself that was never there before, because now I'm free to be the person I imagined so many years ago. The woman who's strength outweighs her weaknesses, who's love is enough to bury any hate, the world I am in now is as close to perfect as I'd ever want it to be. Who needs perfect anyway? Perfect is boring.

So why start now? Read above all over again and you'll find your answer. It's worth every tough moment, every second of self doubt, all the excuses you give yourself to not begin living the way you've always needed. There's not one damn good reason not to start now. That's why.