I feel like I've really lost my joy latey. I keep trying to find it again, and it exists in pockets, but generally I am very unhappy and it's making me think a lot about the type of person I want to be, how I spend my time, and how I can make my days more intentional.
I know it's easy to romanticise the past, but I look at things like my Photos of June and whilst I recognise it's just a curated glimpse of my own making, life somehow feels like it was fuller back then. I think I've gotten into too many bad habits, too far into my own head, and part of me has given up. And that's what I need to claw my way out from, but everything feels like such an insurmountable effort. I miss the me pre-Covid (maybe even pre-Korea honestly, it's hard to know which of the experiences it was that kicked the shit out of me but it was somewhere inbetween there). I had so many dreams and never a shred of doubt that I would reach them. Now all I have is doubt, I feel eaten alive by it. I did a tarot reading and as I was shuffling the cards the 9 of swords jumped out the pack at me. If that isn't the universe calling me out I don't know what is.
I did get a new Filofax. Could I have used one I already had? Absolutely, but I wanted this one. I'm still using my A5 Filofax as my memory keeping journal, and I use a Hobonichi Cousin Avec for stream of concious journaling to clear the sludge from my brain, but I was itching for something a bit less serious. Something I can carry with me and fill with all of my most precious things. Make collages of my blorbos, write rough drafts of blog posts I'm thinking about, make notes about books or shows I'm enjoying. Anything and everything really. I'm excited about it as I feel like I don't really have any spaces to just nerd out, and I realised that fandom is a big part of what's missing from my life lately. I'm a big believer in the John Waters quote "life is nothing if you're not obsessed" as it occupies the mind in a healthy way. At my happiest from late 2018-early 2020 I was obsessed with Wicked, Frozen, musical theatre in general, and Mika. And whilst all of those things are still really important to me, it's not the same all consuming obsession it once was as it's been 6 years - and that's actually hard for me to contend with in my mind sometimes, how has it been that long? Have I been asleep? I feel like I want to go back, to be that version of myself again, but when I try it feels like a performance. As much as I'll always love Wicked, it's not new to me any more and I've already thought about it from every angle I possibly can, I've already drawn all of the fan art that really excites me. I've gone from the excitement of discovering something new to a veteran fan, and I've struggled to find anything to fill it's place and actually stay there for a decent amount of time.
I've said my joy exists in pockets, and right now it's right here. You may remember from my Copenhagen post that I mentioned I'd been reading Conclave by Robert Harris. I was trying very hard in that post to sound very casual about it and not like I was practically vibrating with a new special interest, but joy for me right now is this slightly weird trifecta of Conclave (book and movie), Ghost, and the TV show The New Pope (The Young Pope and The New Pope are different seasons of the same show. I like both, but The New Pope is better). Conclave and Ghost were coincidental, both part of the same trip for me, and I discovered The Young/New Pope after trying to find more things that would make me feel like Conclave did and boy did it deliver. It's a weird thing to talk about as I'm very acutely aware of the optics (my Blurays of both Conclave and The Young Pope were accidently delivered to my neighbour and I was cackling thinking about what they must have thought) but all of these things are actually not religious, it's just aesthetics and actually being quite critical. But no one normal wants to be perceived as a zealot either, and I'm trying hard not to feel weird about liking nice and innocent things and allowing others ignorance to cloud my judgements, but it is a weird line to toe at the same time particularly in the current politcal climate. But these things are whats bringing me a lot of joy!
Other than focusing on my favourite fictional Cardinals, I'm trying to make real world plans too. I'm procrastinating my online portfolio, telling myself once I've finished the current digital series I'm working on (a trio of illustrations, one for each verse of The Owl and the Pussycat) then I'll make my website and try and promote the heck out of myself. I hope I can be brave and actually do it, as I do believe I'm artistically capable but it's my lack of self esteem and fear of rejection that constantly holds me back. But I also don't want to get to 60 and think 'I wish I'd done that'! I'd also like to take a computer science course just to see if I have an aptitude as I've always regretted not doing a tech degree as I used to enjoy it and would build websites and stuff for fun and was fluent in HTML, CSS, PHP, etc. It's also a career path that's well paid and easier to get visas so I could travel, but instead I stupidly followed my heart and did an illustration degree that AI is probably going to completely eat the industry of soon enough so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. Basically I would like to stop procrastinating and hiding from living my life and believe in myself again, but it's uncomfy and that makes it difficult but I know how important it is. I don't like who I've become, I'm too negative and too guarded and afraid, and I would like to try very hard to pull myself back up and start living again.
for what it's worth--I believe in you!!!
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