As of today, we have hit our two week mark. In exactly a fortnight (Glob, I love that word) I will be making my first journey across the Atlantic Ocean. It's so dreamy! I think that this trip is going to change my life forever. Not everyone gets to experience a trip like this in their lifetime (my parents have never been anywhere out of North America) and I feel very fortunate. Being from a culture that's only a few centuries old, I'm very excited to get to see places that are so rich with history. It's going to be amazing walking down streets that have been walked upon by people for hundreds of years. It's very romantic to think about.
However, while I'm very excited about all of the amazing things I'm going to get to see and experience I'm also trying very hard to keep my anxiety in check. Sometimes there's a fine line between anxiety and excitement and it can be hard to differentiate the two. But I must give myself props for handling all of this so well. The fact that I'm even going on a trip of this magnitude is HUGE progress for me. Ten years ago (even 5 years ago) I wouldn't have been able to go on this trip. My anxiety disorder kept me on a tight leash and I had so many limitations. In fact, ten years ago I was pretty much housebound, believe it or not. I had so many phobias that my life became pretty isolated and small. I couldn't work and I could barely handle going to school. But with the support and love of many people in my life I began to face all of the things I was afraid of. It's weird thinking about the person I was back then since the person I am today is so different. For many years I had an eating with people phobia and for 5 years I didn't eat out with anyone. I ate all my meals at home because my anxiety was so intense at the time that I was nauseous practically around the clock. Since I felt queasy so often I worried constantly that I was going to throw up (and Glob forbid, throw up in front of PEOPLE). And now I love eating out with friends. It's one of my favorite things to do. But back then I cared so much about what others thought about me that I let it consume me. I would avoid any situations that could result in potential embarrassment. Living this kind of life led to very low self esteem and as you can imagine, very few friends. My future seemed so bleak in those days and I had pretty much renounced any hope of getting over my anxiety. Pretty bummer times, yo.
But as you know, things did get better! During this past decade I learned a lot about Anxiety Disorder and educated myself on it thoroughly. One of the most valuable things I learned about this disorder was that MILLIONS OF PEOPLE have it. It wasn't just me. I wasn't just "crazy" like I believed I was for many years. I was just a negative thinker, a worrier, and very sensitive. Just knowing that I wasn't alone was super beneficial to me. However, once I learned that most of my problems came from how I speak to myself internally, I realized I had the power to heal myself. I heard a quote somewhere in my research, "I am the lock but I am also the key". It's taken years but I've realized how to spot negative thinking patterns and how to stop them and replace them with a positive thought. Through this whole process I've become a very positive person and it's funny how now everyone comes to me when they're feeling down and need cheering up. But the most important thing I learned about phobias is that you HAVE to face them. If you don't you give them power and that power can quickly take over your life (and peace of mind). It's very scary but you have to force yourself to do the things that frighten you. It's best to take things slowly and do baby steps but by doing the things that you're afraid of you'll realize that you're not going to die and it's not the end of the world. You have to give yourself praise for any steps in the right direction. We all need to learn how to be our own best friend and love ourselves unconditionally.
When I was about 25 years old I made a decision (one of the best decisions I've ever made) and it was to stop being who I thought other people wanted me to be and to just be myself; to 100% embrace who I am and love that person completely. I've always been different and kind of "weird" and for most of my life I suppressed those parts of myself and was very unhappy as a result. But once I started being myself and not caring if people liked me or not, something funny happened. People liked me! Everyone at university wanted to be my friend; I was my professor's favorite student. I finally set the real me free and I have no regrets.
I still have my bad days though, I'm only human. I've accomplished so much with my battle against anxiety disorder but I'll never be "cured" or anything. I just learned how to deal with anxious feeling when they arise. But I've never travelled for this long without my family or in another country so some amount of anxiety is bound to happen. I'm going to try not to think about that though. I'm trying reallllly hard just to focus on all of the fun we're going to have. I know this trip won't be perfect and there will be bumps on the road but we're going to leave with so many memories. I simply cannot wait!
Wish my luck! And thank you for reading this little blog and sharing these experiences with me.
Xoxo,
Courtney
I've been doing a lot of thinking lately about what's really important to me and makes me happy in my life (and we all know that life is short; you never know how much time you'll have here and even if you live a long life, it's never enough time). Yeah...a lot of heavy thinking going on recently. But when I really asked myself what gives me the most joy in my life, the answer was crystal clear: making art. I've been putting so much energy into finding a job that I wouldn't even care about. I don't want to answer phones for the rest of my life. I'm sick of lying at interviews and spouting tripe like, "Oh, I loooooove working with people! And doing menial clerical work is my favorite!"
I cringe doing public service work and couldn't possibly care less about the success of these companies. What I do care about is making art that makes people feel things and ultimately makes people happy. It brings me joy knowing that the art I'm making is bringing joy to others. And the fact that I haven't made any new drawings in the past year makes me very sad. I have a degree in drawing and I quit drawing only a year out of school because I was in such a big hurry to get a better job, an apartment, a husband...all of those things that society thinks I'm "supposed" to have. But in the long run, would that higher paying job and tiny little apartment bring me happiness? Shouldn't the happiness be coming from inside me and not from outside sources? Finding a partner to share my life with is still something that I want very much but maybe the reason why I haven't found him yet is because I need to find myself first. I need to figure out how to be truly happy on my own before I find someone to share that happiness with. Or maybe I'm just doomed to be alone...I don't know! :p
I talked to a good friend about my conundrum and he offered some really sage-like advice. I told him how I often compare myself to others and by doing so, I often feel like I'm not measuring up to the success of others. He told me we're all on our own paths and never to compare myself to anyone else or "timelines" set by society. He also said that I'll figure out what I want to do with my life simply because I want to and, "You never know what will happen or when, you just need to make sure you are at least allowing those situations to appear."
So now we're at the point of this story where I've made my decision. I've decided (for now) to go back to my part-time job and spend the rest of my time really concentrating on my art. My old job didn't pay very well but I don't have a lot of bills and am generally a pretty thrifty lady. What's more important to me right now than having a lot of money is TIME. Art takes time to create and if I were to take a 40 hour a week job right now I know for a fact that I wouldn't feel like making anything when I got home. I'd probably still have time to make the occasional embroidery but I know I wouldn't make any fine art. And if people want to judge me for living at home, that's their problem, not mine. At least I have parents who love me and support me. When I told my dad about my plan he said, "That sounds like a great idea! You need to do whatever it is that makes YOU happy, Courtney."
I know there's no guarantee that my art will be super successful but you can't win if you don't try, right? And if making art makes me happy, then that's a success. But I still believe that I have something special to offer with my artwork and that it has potential to get even better. I just need to practice more and work more on marketing my work. And I'm also going to work on not expecting so much out of life. My expectations of myself have been ridiculously high in the past and that only leads to disappointment. I'm going to work on being more kind and compassionate towards myself. I heard someone say once, "We're all worthy of our own unconditional love" and I think it's about time I really start treating myself the way I treat everyone else. Because I'm worth it ;)
Since my last post, I have packed up my life into 25 boxes, booked a plane ticket for my pop and scheduled a pick up for a 10ft U-haul truck. Two days from now I'll be on the road headed south on I-5.
And it couldn't come soon enough.
The past 4 weeks in the old witch's house have been a living Hell. It's been so stressful having to avoid someone who NEVER LEAVES THE HOUSE. The strategies that I've found to be the most successful are to either A.) hide in my bedroom all day or B.) be gone most of the day. Scheduling meals has been the most difficult aspect to my avoidance tactic since the witch manages to always be in the kitchen. I often wonder what she does down there. How is it possible to spend so much time in a kitchen? It's not Disneyland for Christ's sake. Suffice to say, I haven't been eating as heartily as I'd like these past few weeks. I'm going to have to make up for it when I get home. I've even made a list of all of the places I'm going to eat at. Here's some of the top contenders:
*Krua Thai
*La Parilla Suiza
*Pei Wei
*Cherry Blossom Noodle Cafe
*Rubio's
*Pita Jungle
*Wok Express
Since my last post winter has come to Washington and you know what I think about Washington's winters? I FUCKING HATE THEM! All this time I thought I hated being hot the most but guess what? I hate being cold even more. When you don't have any meat on your bones and no else's body heat to absorb at night, being cold is a bitch. And what's even worse is the dampness in the air. It's soggy and muddy everywhere I go and don't even get me started on the pine needles! Dried, stinky pine needles get everywhere! And the old witch keeps leaving notes for me and Alyssa (the good roommate) to vacuum them--like we're the only ones who bring them in. The other night Alyssa and I went to see "Breaking Dawn: Part 2" and had a grand ol' time. When we returned there was a huge note in green ink on our bathroom door telling us to vacuum the stairs in the morning and to be "courteous to others". Ummm...you know what would be even more courteous? To stop leaving passive-aggressive GD notes all over the GD house!
(Did I mention that I hate this woman?) >_________<
The next morning I went to work and when I got home it was super late so I didn't want to wake the beast by vacuuming so I thought I'd do it after work the next day since I would be home at 7pm. So that next evening I got home and vacuumed all the stupid pine needles. When I went up to my room there was the note AGAIN. She had fished it out of the garbage can and put it back on the door!! She's totally nutzo! GAAAHHHHH!
I just have to keep telling myself that in 2 days it'll all be over and I'll never have to see her again.
Anywho, the last two weekends were fun because my friend Nikki, her boyfriend, and I went to Seattle. We wanted to see the King Tut exhibit that was at the Pacific Science Center. The first time we went downtown I drove us...which was a wee bit stressful. I am not going to miss driving around Seattle one bit. No sir. It took me about half an hour to find a parking space and when we got to the Science Center they told us King Tut was sold out for the rest of the day. Fuck. We'd already paid for parking so we went to the EMP museum. Honestly, it was pretty boring. There was a Nirvana exhibit and a Hendrix one and I'm not too keen on either so I was pretty "meh" the whole time. The Science Fiction Museum was connected to the EMP so we checked that out as well. Unfortunately, I'm not much of a sci-fi fan so that museum was wasted on me too. For dinner I had MOD Pizza though, and that was awesome!
The next weekend we went back (we'd pre-ordered our tickets this time) but took the bus. It was my first time riding the bus actually. It took over an hour to get to downtown since the 520 bridge was closed so when we got to Seattle it was already 1:45pm and our reservations were at 2pm so we had to haul some major ass. It was windy in addition to being rainy so Mama was not too pleased. At least my makeup looked good.
The exhibit was pretty badass...I just wish we'd been able to enjoy it more. There were about 100 people crammed into each segment of the exhibit so you had about 30 seconds to look at each piece before you were literally being shoved out of the way. I was also disappointed that the sarcophagus and the death mask weren't there. Bummer. After King Tut we checked out the rest of the Science Center. The coolest part was the tropical butterfly sanctuary. We got to go inside and have the butterflies flying all around us. It was pretty neat! We even got to see one coming out of its cocoon while we were standing there. Once again I had MOD for dinner and it was the yummy. I wasn't too thrilled about walking back to the bus terminal at night in the rain so Nikki bought us tickets to the monorail. It's amazing how short of a ride it was. I think it was like 2 minutes? It dropped us off at the mall (the bus terminal was underneath the mall) and while we were going down the escalator we passed a shop called Daiso Japan. Nikki's boyfriend saw me staring at this shop with giant eyeballs and said, "You can go in there if you want. We're in no hurry to get home."
OHMYGOSH!
This was the cutest store ever! Everything was $1.50 and it was Heaven. I filled an entire basket up with goodies for less than $20. While in the mall I also stubbled across this:
Gawd, I love Boo. He's my spirit animal.
We took the bus back to Kirkland and when we got back to my car I had a parking ticket on my windshield. What a great way to end an otherwise awesome day. >___< That's the last bit of money that Washington is getting out of me. Hey Washington, quit bein' a dick!
Here's some good news though! Since I'll be home the first week of December that means that I'll be able to see "The Hobbit" with all my mates! I'm going with my girls Maddie, Jackie and Heather and we're wearing matching Hobbit t-shirts because we're awesome. I seriously can't wait. It's going to be the best.
Man, it's gonna be great to be home :3
Ok...so I've done a really shitty job of updating this blog :S But in my defense I've been extremely busy, like, crazy busy.
It's amazing how this semester just zoomed by. At times I felt like it would kill me but now that it's coming to a close I don't feel ready for it to end. Next semester will hopefully be a walk in the park since I'm only taking 8 credit hours and I'll only have homework in one class but again, that's what I said about this semester.
I'd like to find a better job in January as well since I'll have my weekends free. It's a bit of a bummer because the job I have now is really easy and I generally like the folks I work with but the pay just isn't cutting the mustard. I really need to scrimp and save this upcoming year so I can get the fudge out of Arizona. Mentally, I'm already in Washington. I'm SO over the desert. To be honest though, the prospect of moving again on my own is pretty scary and causing me a bit of anxiety...Ok, a lot of anxiety. When I moved to Oregon I at least had quite a bit of savings built up so I had time when I got there to formulate a more solid plan. However, this time I won't have as much money and I'm still not sure what direction I want to take with my career. I still intend on continuing with my comic strip but who knows if they'll ever become commercially successful so I need to figure out someway to put food on the table. Ideally, I'd like to get a job in illustration but I have no clue how you even get into that field. Plus there are so many talented people out there to compete with...Ugggghhhh...>.< That's why I've been trying to just live one day at a time and not worry about the future so much. I'd like to think that everything will just work itself out if I continue to work hard.
Let's switch back to the present though for the time being. This semester I've been working on a series of drawings that have turned out to be my best work to date. Unfortunately, I don't have any photos to post of them since two are still in progress and the other two are on display in the School of Art Building, but I plan on showing them in my senior exhibition so I should have photographs of them in the not too distant future. This semester, like last semester we had to do a series of drawings that were all tied together by a common theme. Last year I did a series featuring birds and since I enjoy doing illustrations that involve animals so much I chose cats this semester. It's been quite a battle with my professor though since she's more of an abstract artist. Since I first proposed the idea for the series she's been giving me hell and teasing me daily in front of my peers. It's funny that she gives me such a hard time when I know I'm one of her favorite students. I wish she could just have faith in me and trust my instincts. I'm not a slacker and I put a lot of thought and energy into my work; so she should know that I'm not going to produce any shitty, half-assed drawings. I don't see why drawings featuring animals are looked at as being "cliche". Personally I adore animal art, specifically cat art. Cat art has existed in every culture in every era for thousands of years. They're very respectable creatures in my humble opinion so I don't understand how cats as a subject is any different from trees or flowers or portraits or anything.
Despite all of her bitching though, she gave me A+s on my first two drawings and during our last critique gave me quite the compliment. She said, "These drawings are a perfect example of what you can accomplish with just a piece of charcoal and an eraser." I felt very proud after hearing that since I've struggled with my confidence as an artist for so long. I feel like I'm finally starting to get comfortable with my style and that my artwork really is something special.
I just hope that I'll continue to be motivated after I graduate. It's so easy to get distracted and caught up with your "day job" and life's everyday stresses. But I digress...
Time to get back to work and finish up these drawings :3
Later interneters!
~Courtney~
