I'm My Own Kryptonite

I’ve come to the conclusion that my artistic side is diminishing. Scratch that. Perhaps it’s my artistic side has never risen to my own expectations. Ever since I was a small tike, I’ve placed myself in the artistic pool of the population. I loved to draw, paint, and write. My parents encouraged me with summer art classes, and buying me art supplies. Everything I churned out was met with praise. Pictures I drew or stories I wrote would be placed on classroom bulletin boards or shown at the “best work” exhibit in art classes. This always and still does infuriate me. Whatever I put on paper or canvas never matched what my brain envisioned.

That is still the case today. Even something as simple as doodling is met with my ire for not being what I intended. What comes from my hands is never as good as what I pictured. It’s like there’s a wall between my brain and hands. I always thought that the wall would crumble the more I practiced, that my ability would reach my mind’s expectations. It hasn’t. To combat this wall, I began creating with no blueprint. If I doodled, I’d just draw a line and then create what I saw in that line. I didn’t write with an outline. I just wrote what I thought was the logical next step. Even then my hands worked out of synch with my mind. Now, I find myself placing all endeavors on the back burner, because I know it will only lead to frustration.

Perhaps, I misled myself. Perhaps, those who praised me really were just being nice. I’ve always succeeded at the logical. Math came easy to me as a kid. Working at WAMU, I excelled in the banking industry. Working as an accountant I did well. I become frustrated when the research questions I’m given defy logic. I’ve always worked the puzzles in magazines and games. I like finding the pattern, the logic. The problem is it also bores the living hell out me. Those jobs bored me. Math bores me. If there’s one thing I don’t like, it is boredom. This alone is the reason this blog even exists.

Even with these feelings of artistic inadequacies, I plow on because the doors have opened. I’m in what seems to be the right place at the right time. Though, I feel that perhaps these doors have just opened to a long hallway with a dead end. I’m sorry, this isn’t a search for pity. This is a mumbling frustration of my attempt to become what apparently only my mind’s eye will see. After 33 years, I’ve come to determine that perhaps my ability will stay at a high school level or lower. At this point in my life, I feel as if my abilities have actually diminished. I feel less funny, less talented. It’s as if I’ve become a dumbed down version of myself. Come to think of it I may just be pissed I drank heavily, smoke heavily, and am a snob for no good reason.