Happy Birthday to me; 36 revolutions around the Sun and counting.
I’ve stated in the past how I feel about my birthday; it’s often a mixed bag of emotions, not a lot of them really that positive, and I was very much not in the best headspace as this one approached. The events of the last couple of months, my perceived slowness on my personal projects, the general lack of direction; not the greatest combination when approaching a milestone that a lot of other people have reached while achieving something substantial with their lives.
Fortunately, I was lucky enough to attend a lunch with friends and family yesterday in recognition of the event, and on top of having a substantial home-cooked meal for a change, I was able to talk with the people that I feel safest with outside of my home and fiancee. I spilled my guts a bit and they were all very understanding; they offered positive words, outside perspectives and an overall positivity that I’d been having trouble finding within myself. My fiancee has been telling me the same things for months, but hearing it come from more than one source made it seem all the more real.
A creative is their own worst critic, and taking a look from the outside throws my harshest self-criticisms into sharp relief against the achievements that others can perceive. I bemoan my lack of consistency; others can see that I’m drawing and uploading stuff on the daily. I talk down the amount of progress I’ve made; others point out that I’m still doing something, speed be damned. I feel dissatisfied with my art; others all praise my improvement and ever-increasing portfolio. It felt so good and so uplifting to hear someone else tell me that I’m wrong, that my self-deprecation is a skewed perspective because I can only see myself from the inside.
I can only remind myself so much about the marathon that is life, that sprinting to the end is neither logical nor healthy; to hear it from the people closest to me is a gift that I will treasure more than any other birthday present. There is no greater present than a future, and it means the world to me to be reminded that I still have a chance to build one.
Ciao for now.