The Journey

It took me 20 years to realize that being in the retail business with my own storefront was not what I really wanted to do. I loved what I offered to sell - my own art, beautiful crystals, lots of New Age things at the time, jewelry, and pretty things to hang in your home, but I disliked dealing with the public! I also spent money and never made a profit, yet I kept the storefront(s) as I moved a dozen times through those years in hopes I'd find a location where people would come in at least to look, but my comfort zone kept me where the right people didn't exist. So now I look back and don't know why I didn't give up retail much sooner. I am so content at home and not sitting looking out the windows of my rental space waiting for people to come in. I had to put up with men coming in and parking themselves on a chair, staying and talking for an hour!! That I didn't like. 

Now I know...that was not my purpose. My heart and soul love the arts and always have. I took art lessons in different mediums for years in different parts of the country wherever we lived at the time, and more recently, online which was NOT for me! I am NOT group oriented and  learned that lesson. I'm close to not doing much on Facebook now, too. Where is everybody that I have things in common with? Maybe alone as I.

Not only painting/art but I have always loved writing and music and dance. I used to write song lyrics and poetry...when I'm "moved" I do my best work. In art, in writing, and I think that is what I am content with and my purpose is - to write and paint, but what then do I do with that? Do I accumulate what I create? Join the millions stuck in never-never land behind 30,000 others trying to sell their art, too?  Do I write a book? About what? It takes too long. I like to create something and do something with it right away. I do love creating websites but it's tough to get people to look at them, as again, you're stuck on the millionth page of links and no one will find me. What I have noticed others do is that you start locally, make a name for yourself, but then you still have to "go to the people!" That is so not for me at this stage of my life. 

I'm just thinking out loud, folks. This is a comfortable way for me to express myself - getting my thoughts out of my head. It doesn't matter if anyone reads my blog posts, especially these where I just more or less talk to myself. So like the words above in that adorable image, what has gotten me to where I am in my newly found realizations, I am "un-becoming" the things I thought I wanted to become...it took me long enough. I so don't want to do what others are doing when I was at the same place interested in the things they still are interested in, and so that leaves me with the question, do I have a tribe? Do I even want to belong to a tribe? I love being alone and I love my home, yard, and animals, including the wild ones that I feed every day. I love to read when I make time and have come to realize that I love the teachings of Caroline Myss. So I read her books and listen to her lectures on You Tube. Then I think about my place in this big universe which brings me back to what do I really want to do with my time? :) Part of me wants to share/offer what I create to the masses like everyone else who paints and writes. I just haven't found it yet. 

So as the message above states - at least I know what I don't want anymore and where I don't fit in. That's a good beginning and I am well past that. My lifestyle would be different if I were alone but I am not. I have a husband who is different in almost all ways than myself and we don't even eat the same foods. :) I would be more myself if I were alone and is one reason I get confused about my true purpose. Oh well, such is life. I have another day ahead of me to think, love my surroundings, write to my heart's content, and not sit anywhere waiting for the public to like and want what gifts I have to offer. (haha) Oh, if you knew the time I wasted - and soooo much money! Oh well, I have learned that lesson and now I am "Free to be Me! :)