Reflections on Achieving Dreams

I picked up postcards yesterday for my solo show. This little piece of paper symbolizes so very much, and brings so many emotions. This year is ten years since my fiancé died, and it feels surreal. I still remember the year he died that I could not fathom a time when it would be ten years later. And now, here we are, and it doesn't feel like ten years at all. Maybe because time doesn't pass the same anymore since he died. Or maybe because I still feel like he is a part of everything, most especially my art. Maybe it’s a bit of both.

This postcard also symbolizes the culmination of a life long dream. I spent my entire childhood imagining being an artist as a grown up. While other little girls were dreaming about their wedding day, I was dreaming about having an art studio in a giant red barn, with a loft up top that has a bedroom so I could literally just wake up, walk downstairs, and make art. Don't quite have that art barn yet, but to finally get to having a solo show of my work feels equally huge.

Here's the truth, you can spend a lifetime getting in your own way. I've spent a lot of years doing that with this goal. Out of fear. Out of not feeling "professional" enough. And out of feeling like I don't deserve to achieve dreams like this. It has taken years of therapy and self help books and journaling and practicing self love to get to this postcard. A lifetime of fighting an uphill battle with myself and saying again and again to myself that I am worth it. It has taken shoving aside every voice in my head that wants to tell me I don't deserve to have this show, and shouting back even louder that I DO.

I've felt a little embarrassed that it's taken me nearly eight years to finally exhibit this work - those voices in my head want to say it's old work now, it doesn't matter anymore, it looks weird that you took this long. I. Don't. Care. The truth is that it took this long. The truth is that meaningful work is never too old, never obsolete. The truth is, I needed eight years to get to the place within myself to be doing this. And there isn't anything wrong with that.

I'm telling myself this more than anyone else, because so so many beautiful and hard emotions have been churning in me for the past month or two about all of this. I think it helps to share it. It helps me, and maybe someone else out there too, who still has dreams and is having the same emotions about achieving them. It's never too late. Sometimes things just take a lot longer because they need to. Especially when they are really big, life long goals and dreams. Don’t ever tell yourself it’s too late. Be louder than the voices of self doubt (or the external voices of doubt!), and when the timing is right, it will come.

- With Love - 
Sarah