Things I’ve Told Myself
Sometimes I think the worst things I’ve ever been told—I told myself. Probably while preparing breakfast or trying to go back to sleep. That’s how those voices show up. Not like thunder. More like static. More like: Of course you didn’t finish it. Why would you expect anybody to care? Your work just doesn’t amount to anything. It’s all a waste.
Creating Anyway
Sometimes I think the scariest thing in the world is a blank canvas.
Not just because it’s empty, but because it isn’t. It’s full of every voice that ever told you not to bother. Every teacher who frowned, every neighbour who said, “That’s nice, do you make any money with it?”Full of your father’s disbelief about your wasted life (and his!), your own hesitation, the memory of the last thing you made that no one ever saw, all the drawings you traced, the poetry you wrenched out of your gut, all those attempts to make meaning—put aside, unacknowledged, unappreciated.
Your Inner Child is not broken
Little Girls with Big Eyes
There’s a kind of ache that never goes away. Not really. You learn to live with it, like a crooked tooth or a limp you pretend isn’t there. Most of us carry around some younger version of ourselves. Little girls with big eyes. Boys with backpacks too heavy. Kids who waited at the window for someone who never came. And we carry them—into jobs, into relationships, into our art.