it's all right.

today has already established itself as a "me" day. that sounds/reads a little ridiculous, but it's the truth. i slept in for the second day in a row. i awoke to grey rainy light and the realization that i don't have anything planned today. i did yoga in the den (of the den...it's like a den-ception) and the woman on the video kept saying this "you deserve the love you give others." i kind of dismissed it as mumbo-jumbo, but there is a little bit of truth in that. i proceeded to make a late brunch while listening to sam cooke. it's been a good morning.
today is apart of a bigger event that i have named "the great week of catharsis" because this is an important transition week full of letting go and welcoming. this is the first week david and i are long distance (the first of fourteen), the week before i start summer classes, the week to re-organize my life and finances now that the storm of spring 2014 is over, and the week before the gym opens up again. all of those things shape my life and my schedule. it's nice to set them aside and just focus on releasing the stress and tension this year has accumulated already. i have exercised my body and mind only when i've felt like it, i have been drinking enough water, and i have been spending adequate time with my Savior.
i have complained a lot on here about how i have been defeated and very unloving to myself. my personal construction is not conducive to being easy on myself. i have spent as long as i can remember trying to exceed expectations to the point of tears and illness. this past semester, i tried to let go of a lot of that. i knew i was not doing well in any area of my life, so i thought "forget this" and tried to just coast through school. i worked hard, but i never felt like i was excelling. my mom finally sat me down and said "just get c's and be happy. i'd rather that than you get a's and be miserable." so i kind of took that and ran with it. i still wasn't quite happy, but i skipped class and turned things in when i thought they were finished (even if they really weren't). when i was going to check my final grades on monday, i expected to see at least a few c's and a few b's. it turns out, i got better grades this spring than i have in the last year. i guess the lesson here is sometimes it is so healthy to let yourself go, so to speak.

it seems almost silly to let a thing like grades delegate your feelings, but somethings in my heart and mind shifted when i saw them. it was like Jesus was crooning to me (much like sam cooke):
"It's all right, it's all right, it's all right, honey, it's all right, as long as I know, long as I know that you love Me, baby, it's all right."

i guess that's what i've been learning during this "great week of catharsis" and been mulling over this "me" day.

unpacking thoughts while packing up everything else

because i'm moving into an apartment with a few other girls, i had been planning on going through my things pretty thoroughly. then my mom said she wanted to make some changes to the room and asked me if i would pack up all my other stuff. while purging clothes and snippets of fabric and knick-knacks and such, i found tons of my older artwork. it's been kind of weird to look at my work from a few years ago. it's kind of been nice, too.

i started taking art classes at the college level when i was sixteen (at chatt state...so you know). i was so hooked and on fire. my adolescent dreams were definitely of my work being shown in galleries across the world and travel and the busy life that being a (successful) practicing artist would be. my passion was working in the darkroom. today, as i opened a huge box of HUGE prints (oh how wonderfully large those prints are), i realized how much photography consumed me. it kind of sounds ridiculous, but it's true. i wouldn't eat or drink or sleep or hang out with friends or anything because i was in the darkroom. i clearly remember spending 8-12 hours straight in there. just working and working and working. i only came out for air to glance at a test strip or stare at a negative or compare huge (dripping wet) prints. i can still remember always smelling like chemicals and feeling so fulfilled after looking at the filled drying line at the end of the work day.
all that to say, i do miss it. that time (artistically) was my favorite. i miss the passionate, enthusiastic experience of being good at something and being really close to my professor and having lunch in his office and him critiquing me harshly (and truthfully and constructively) and growing so quickly.
i spent all summer thinking about sculpture and how my focus has shifted to that, but i don't think i'm done with the analog photography stage of my life.

just some thoughts.
now i need to put more things in boxes.

(i also looked at my paintings. and laughed a lot. i am an awful painter. someday i might understand how to paint. but as for now, it's a mystery)