Lately I’ll been over here low-key struggling. Not in any way profound way…but more than usual, I’ve been feeling the presence of all the projects I want & need to do that are still undone. When these things start to add up, it’s like someone is dropping scraps of paper into my head, one by one, and the more there are, the more my mind kicks up a stiff wind that whips them around and around.
There are countless bits of cleaning I need to do; the continual cycle of how fast things get dirty will forever haunt me, I’m sure. There is my large loom, in pieces in my unfinished studio in the basement, my small loom waiting to be set with a project. There is un-dyed yarn and roving to be dyed, and un-spun wool to spin. There is business admin stuff I could be doing. There are affirmations, quotes and lyrics that yearn to be embroidered. My Etsy shop sits empty, longing for listings. There is facebook reminding me I haven’t posted for a while…both on my RMT page and my craft blog. There is a novel lurking in the corner of my mind, waiting for me to have the time and patience to find all its’ bits. I haven’t drawn since finishing RMT school…and that was all anatomy drawing, not necessarily drawing for pleasure.
Someone I used to be very good friends with, one of the few people with whom I still keep in touch with from high school draws anxiety monsters. I follow him on Instagram @billyhebbart, and you should too. His drawings never fail to relate to the various negative, anxious and self-harming thoughts I have had and which continue to sneak through despite my best efforts at self-care.
Looking at my Instagram this morning, after waking up late and feeling guilty about still being in bed, his post seemed particularly poignant. His drawing of a two-headed raven’s skull is captioned “none of my life is what I wanted it to be” with the further explanation that he’s almost 30 and what Iliza Shlesinger would deem an ‘elder millennial.’ Being the same age, this of course started me thinking.
We millennials get a bad rep for being too sensitive and winey, for wanting our cake and eating it too…and I suppose in a lot of ways I’m guilty of this (especially the sensitivity part…that’s like my superpower…) but I have to wonder whether the older generations were truly better/different or if they’re all just off trying to hide their smirks because they fooled us into thinking they weren’t exactly the same way.
I suppose it’s incredibly idealist of me to wish we lived in a world where everyone could find gainful employment and make a living wage by exploiting their natural talents and passions. It seems to me that everyone is skilled at something, and that if they are lucky enough to know what that skill is, and be utilizing it, they should be compensated fairly for it. …and I have to admit, that is the way our system is set up, in theory. So why does it often feel like that’s not how it works out?
It’s easy to be overwhelmed by feeling like you’re not meeting up with the proper timeline…like you’re falling behind and should be so much further along in life than you are right now. Perhaps it’s because my parents did a good job hiding their own struggles from me that my perspective on where they were at my age isn’t truly accurate…or maybe your parents couldn’t hide their struggle from you and your young idealistic fantasies about how much better you would do weren’t really based in reality after all.
The only thing you can really do if you want to accomplish anything at all (as opposed to laying down in a puddle of despair and anxiety…as is so tempting…) is to concentrate on all the good things you do have in your life at the moment and use those things to help you take one tiny step at a time towards those bigger goals.