I have a confession. It’s something I don’t really talk about or tell those that I’m close to out of fear of failure and disappointment. So I think I’ll start here, in my anonymous little corner of the internet.
I am a closet artist.
No, I don’t mean that I decorate closets. Rather I am secretly a very artistic person. I drew rabidly from the age of about seven all the way through my teen years and even took oil painting lessons at one point. I received lots of encouragement from friends and family. Then one day someone close to me, whose opinion I gave far too much weight to, damned me with faint praise. I took it to heart as only a sixteen-year-old could and stopped painting and drawing. Instead I studied math in college, another great love of mine, but it never replaced that longing in my heart to create beautiful images. Every now and then I would draw something, and it would turn out well enough that I would think… maybe…
So here is what I want:
I want to start exploring my artistic abilities again.
I want to do so in a way that is fearless. No fear of others’ opinions. No fear of failure. Completely. Totally. Fearless.
I want to see where it all takes me.
I suppose I hope it will return some of the passion I gave up in exchange for safer waters.
That step between thinking it and doing it seems so large sometimes. Really, it’s only the stroke of a paintbrush away.
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