on being 22 and digging my heels out of the dirt.

 

Friday, May 12, 2023

 

Being in your early 20s is a little bit like stumbling around in the dark feeling for light switches. Sometimes you hit your knee on a nightstand and even though it hurts, you have to admit it does help you orient yourself a little better. A lot of my friends have been telling me about their nightstands—dream jobs they have decided to leave, relationships that turned into a little less than love, big cities losing their allure against proximity to home. Some days I feel like we have tripped on at least a whole bedroom set by now, but I digress. 

 

At 22, the end credits to your coming-of-age film are already on the screen. But you just realized you want something completely different out of life than you once thought. And you don’t know what it looks like, but you’re pretty sure you know how it feels. So where do you begin?

 

Here is what being an abstract painter has taught me: you don’t need to have a finished idea in mind to know you need to start with paint. 

 

These days, I hold a lot less tightly to the dreams I had at 16 and a lot more tightly to the people who have listened to them change through the years. And it feels like a really good place to start. 

 

Go where your life is happening!