Be Mindful, Even When the Mind is Full

I'm on the bus back to New York from Boston right now (or I was as I was writing this). I was staring out the window, but now I have the overhead light on so all that I can see when I try to look out of the window is my own reflection. Not a welcome sight after a long day and three and a half hours on a bus. And since the light is above my head, my features are shadowed and my face looks skeletal. Reminds me of the vanitas paintings I've studied in Art History -- a genre that forces a reminder of man's mortality.

I'm leaving New York in one week (plus a few hours). I am fully aware of the gravity of this transition but, right now, I lack any emotion about the move. Except for relief. How long can a fish survive out of water really?

This whole transition is making me painfully aware of my lack of resolution and direction for my future. It's making me painfully aware of a deficiency in my self-knowledge. It's making me painfully aware of my shifting dreams, of the realization that I wanted to be a photographer for all of the wrong reasons. To explain, I wanted to do either a.) travel photography so that I could travel, or b.) band photography so that I could be involved in the music industry. I've realized that I genuinely do enjoy photography and the stark potential it has to make a blind person see, but I admire it in the work of others. I've learned in the past few weeks that the likelihood that I will ever be completely satisfied with the quality of my photography is not as probable as it is with my writing.

I now understand that I have never committed to an English degree or a career in that area because the potential for failure in something that I love would hurt much more than failure in something that I kind of like and that I didn't believe I could do anyway. (I realize the error in thinking this way. If I loved someone [a guy] as much as I love writing, I'd like to think I'd give everything I had to make a relationship with that person work.)

I recently read a friend's thoughts on the "sell-out artists" -- the naturally creative people that feel they have to commercialize their ideas in order to stay afloat. I realize that that is what I have become. The logical person may think, "Yeah. That makes sense. Sometimes you have to compromise in order to survive." But the creative person wants to believe -- has hope -- that if they maintain their artistic identity, they will be rewarded. I'd like to think that I'm enough of an idealist to believe in myself that much, but history seems to state otherwise. I want to be a creative writer. That's what I really want in my life. The only thing that rivals this desire is the desire to be a good mother and wife. But I'm afraid of failure. To the point that I've evaded the obvious and changed my "dreams" repeatedly. I may get trampled by the world if I make the decision to be a creative writer, but I much prefer that than the slow annihalation of self that the last five years have been leading to. [Addendum: After a long discussion with Sara and Lexia, I realize that the term "sell-out" may not be the exact term that I wanted to use. I just was trying to convey the thought that I feel I have compromised my dreams because I didn't know if I could make a living at it.]

I know this all sounds kind of dramatic and emotional, but that's what happens when you contemplate your future at night on a bus while staring out of the window. And I've written all of this with the knowledge that only people that I care about and that care about me read my blog. And this is nothing that I wouldn't rattle on to you in person.

I'm thankful for: situations that are catalysts for change and progress. And this dude named De La Vega that writes in chalk on the sidewalks and says really positive things like, " Become your dream," and "Be mindful even when the mind is full." I like you De La Vega. I like you a lot.