2013
I have been away from Tumblr for awhile due to many factors over the past few months. After much change in my life not in my control and constant readjustments of my daily life, I have come to some decisions about the things that I do have control over. As it turns out, these are things that I’ve been longing to reintegrate into my daily life for years but have not had the time due to having a crazy busy and draining job. I have also decided that this is going to become the place where I hold myself accountable to keep up on the positive changes in my life.
I won’t dive into every detail into what has happened just so I don’t bore everyone with the horrid events and sadness of someone else’s life. But I also don’t want to neglect mentioning the events of my life because I feel that creates a void and lack of connection to the humanity of who someone is.
So here it is: For 7 years I worked in the Emergency Dept. at a Children’s Hospital. It was intense and beautiful and fun all at the same time. It was also draining emotionally and physically. But man do I love connecting with children and helping people when they most need it. I learned so much every day! About the human body, physical medical skills, but most importantly, about the human spirit and the humanity that connects us all. Daily, I saw genetic malformities, physical injuries, mental health cases, child abuse in the worst ways, and death. Also I saw hilarious children, amazing people caring for all these children (parents and healthcare workers), and in and amongst ALL of the various people and issues there was just pure beauty. Beauty of humanity. Beauty of the never-ending spectrum of human compassion and personality. I live in a VERY culturally diverse area with people from all over the world and country, and I’m not sure that I will ever have the chance again to connect on such a personal level with so many people from so many countries and backgrounds. I LOVED that aspect of the job to my core.
Now it was not all wonder and beauty. Man…..it sooo wasn’t. More on that another time. But while working, I never had the time to write down all the stories that I wanted to, or to draw all the pictures that I wanted to, to record my life at the time and all that I saw and learned. I was simply too exhausted mentally by the time I got home at 7:00 am to sit down and journal. My art, my creativity, my way of destressing and feeding the part of my soul that heals and invigorates me to grow, all took a back seat to my job, paying off debt, and frankly, trying to just feed myself.
Seven years…………………………..then a back injury. It’s like pulling the emergency break while driving 80 miles per hour on a freeway while pulling the trailer that is your life, that you’re just trying to keep running as smoothly as possible. EVERYTHING gets crushed….all parts of life. It is immensly hard to pick up the pieces after that, and those pieces don’t fit the puzzle anymore. You have to create a new puzzle with the pieces you can salvage. And those pieces can’t be used for the same purposes anymore either. Every aspect of daily living has to be changed. Every one. From the way you sit up in the morning, to the way you sweep a floor, to not being able to cross your legs when sitting, to the amount of time it takes to do ALL of these things and more. Everything takes so much more time. A one bedroom apartment that would take me a day to clean once a week, now takes a week or 2 to get clean. Pain prevents everything. Pain tells me what to do from the time I wake up to the time I go to bed…..and even then, it tells me how to sleep or even IF I will sleep that night. And then there’s the mourning of loss of physical activities (I love to hike and travel and camp and soooooo much more…..it’s in my blood). Ohhh it’s been so much fun!!
It’s been over a year and medically, there has not been much progress if any. I can not see that horizon yet and have learned to stop looking for it for the time being. BUT….. the good that has come out of this is that I have connected back to myself in this past year! The creative juices have been flowing and not just in my head anymore but through my hands. For awhile, my creative brain was screaming at me so loud! I had to pat it on the head and say ”not yet my love….no time…but soon…later, later” for so long, that I couldn’t even figure out WHAT to actually do first when I started listening. I was overwhelmed!! So many ideas in soo many mediums!! Aghhhhh!!!! Alas, I think I’ve found the answer, finally!, to satisfy my head, my heart, and what I can actually physically do. I dove into reading and drooling over art journals over the past year. They cover EVERYTHING. There are no rules….which I am a huge fan of in this aspect! I can do whatever I want and also keep up on creating every day. *Enter the light bulb over the head and the heart swelling with joy. This will feed my need to get ideas down and journal my life, and I can also simultaneously work on the rugs I’ve started making and jewelry as well. I started making rugs last year while in bed lying on my back for the majority of the day. Turns out I’ve been getting better and now have more orders than I can fill in a timely manner! Yay!!
In this new year of 2013, I’m going to try to do a few things.Tthey are not resolutions because those are as worthless as diets. They are just a continuation of many life changes I have been in the process of making. 1. Try to do the 365 day project of drawing or creating SOMETHING daily. And keep track of it here. 2. Take one more step into becoming who I truly am inside and go back to being vegetarian. 3. Continue to grow my rug business. It’s called Milkweed & Lilac and I’m on Facebook for anyone curious :-) 4. Spruce up my Milkweed & Lilac site. I have little experience with photography and hate trying to sell myself so someone will buy my wares…ugh. But this year I really need to improve in that area! So I will take those steps this year. actually that needs to happen soon! haha!
Well, that’s all for today. This Tumblr site is going to change a bit this year. It will still be filled with the things that inspire me and make me laugh, but it will also now be alot more personal. I hope everyone has a very fulfilling January so far!
~Amanda
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