I feel guilty….really, really, guilty….

Le Poire Vert 24 x 20
Le Poire Vert 24 x 20

….because I am an artist.  Because I am an artist.  And baffled and mystified and confused.   Part of my job is to daydream, come up with new ideas, and to just be.  And I feel guilty about that.  I was raised  with a VERY Midwestern work ethic.  “Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise.”  Does that mean if I stay up late looking at artwork on the internet, wake up in the middle of the night with a blog idea and start writing it, sleep until 8 (gasp – I know, almost blasphemous!), leave my pj’s on all day, walk around the yard with my coffee listening to the birds, staring at the mountain, and thanking creator for my life, and then start painting/writing/working out or whatever – I won’t be “healthy, wealthy and wise”?

I feel guilty, because I don’t have a “schedule”.   Oh, I have a “things to do list” (that I don’t always get done – another source of guilt), ie, marketing, web updates, graphic design, taxes (yikes), more marketing, talking with galleries, and, if there is enough time, or I need to get back in touch with me, painting and writing.

I don’t “sit” much.   Actually, I really don’t take enough time to just sit and be – to be in the quiet and the inbetween spaces where all the ideas are.  I don’t, because I feel guilty.   Obviously, I need to start working on this, if I am really going to make this “art thing” work.   Strike that last comment.   I AM going to make this “art thing” work!   Because, as hard as I try to not “be” an artist or a creative person, because I feel guilty, since I am not the typically raised Midwestern sort of person, it all boils down to the fact that I AM an artist.   Period, end of story!

I feel guilty because I am different. Because I am fortunate (strike that one too!), because I divorced my husband, because I left my family, because I have done things that someone “normal” shouldn’t do.   I think and act differently.   I am odd.  I am strange.  I feel a bit freakish.  So was Georgia O’Keefe.  Hmmm…..and I have her listed as one of the people I most admire on Facebook.  Hmmm…..   And she was an artist.  A great artist.  Hmmm….

I am a square peg in a round hole.  I am the black sheep.  I am the odd woman out.  I am the one that wants to fit in and when I do, I wonder why I wanted to.  My son thinks I love being social – and I do, more than him, but in actuality, I LOVE being alone for the most part.  I love being the observer.   I love looking at the spaces in-between.  I kinda like (gasp) being odd.  Because that is who I am.   And so, I guess it means, that I am kinda, sorta, in a way, starting to like myself.

Perhaps I need to re-think this guilt thing, and just be thankful for who I am.  If Georgia did it, so can I….  Actually, even if Georgia didn’t do it, I can do it.   And by doing “it”, I mean, just being me.

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