Outlet

As an artist it is important to have an outlet for artistic expression. For dancers they need a stage and actors a camera and painters a canvas. Whatever the artist if you don’t have a place to express yourself in your own way, it can be depressing and it can hurt.

While I have had assignments lately for a magazine, I don’t always have the freedom to say anything I want. Yes I understand the reasons for this and it makes sense. I know I can’t shine that harsh a light on sleepwalkers, it’s bad for them. I know have to do my job and that does not include my own agenda or anyone else's for that matter. That’s the logical and mature side of things, the reasonable part of me.

The whinny crying baby artist in me wants to pout and throw a temper tantrum and say, “It’s not fair!” While it may not be fair, it the fact of the matter that life is not fair and I don’t get to do everything my way. Sure I know that, everyone has to deal with that fact of life. Unless they are in denial like my mother, who knows for a fact that everything is someone else’s fault, it is never herself. When she doesn’t get her way or fails it is always something out of her control, someone was being a big meanie!

While I refrain from that kind of behavior, it does hurt when things don’t work out the way I want them to. I mean to say it really hurts. It hurt me in my chest to do a piece that was not up to my own standards. I had to finish it and get it over with and move on to something else anything else, the dishes, letting the dogs out. I am fine now and I know why I reacted the way I did.

With this blog I am able to do things my own way and it has spoiled me. I don’t have an editor or boss telling me anything. I try not to be self-indulgent, if I go out to the mall I always bring something home for others, not just me. If I go to a book signing I think of a friend that might want a signed book by this writer as well.

Why all the fuss that I didn’t get to do things my way? The stereotype of an artist being sensitive and crying over things that no one else would think is that big of a deal, or what they would consider ‘just work’ applies here. Yes I was upset because I was told, No. I do give good gifts to my friends and I am generous. Maybe I do all that to cover over the fact that deep down I am a selfish artist and I want my own way all the time and I don’t want anyone to know that since I am afraid no one will like me after they find out. Is that another form of self-deception and my friends already know this about me? All I can say at this point is, thanks for reading my words here on this, my outlet.