I've been experiencing this weird anxiety lately, like I'm forgetting something big or I've got a deadline I need to be thinking about. I at least don't think that's the case, I've actually been doing really great with my discipline and I'm completing the tasks that I want/need to do. Not even just with my art, but I'm regularly posting chapters of the book I'm finishing, I got my car inspected (it passed ya'll,) I even updated my LinkedIn and put the interrogation room up on art station!
I do want to work more on my substance tutorial, but there is no rush or expectation to get it out quickly. I'm doing this for me, my friends, and my students; I KNOW (I know, I know, I know) that they are really appreciative and they like it because I'm a good writer. It's like I have to actively stop myself from thinking that they hate it and me, and think it's lame. It might still be Carona loneliness, but I just found out all my classes are online, (including all my thesis classes,) so I'm going to be doing largely the same stuff I am doing right now. And I'm doing great right now and I'll continue to do great once school starts. I know that. So what's wrong?
One thing that I've been thinking about is how I took so long to get animations to Matthew for Otter Space. I just wanted to get all the animations done and then ship them all off at once. And that absolutely did not turn out well. A week ago, I genuinely thought it was just me feeling insecure about showing WIPs and wanting to get it all COMPLETELY done before letting anyone see it. But now that I'm being more conscientious about my work ethic, I think I'm recognizing that my perfectionist qualities had more to do with it than I thought.
I had very grand plans about how much I would get done this summer - not that it's over - but everything is definitely taking more time than I expected. I think that might be a contributing factor: I'm not working from morning until night and letting the dishes and laundry pile up and my cat go unpet. I'm able to work on a lot of things at once, and yet I'm still seeing really great, rampant progress. This weekend, for example, I sat down and started working on my thesis documents more. I didn't finish it all, but I think I will take a break and continue my space ship. Like a normal person would!
I mean, I also took almost all sugar out of my diet, (because I have lingering issues with food and anything unhealthy like carbs and sugar can trigger me into eating all of it at once. It's a very unfortunate reality.) However, this weekend I felt very proud of that fact and allowed myself Insomnia Cookies and a soda. I was feeling this anxiety before this weekend, but it came back harder this time.
Or it's just a natural dip in mental health.
It would be a lot easier if I could just ask, "Hey body, what's up?" and I could pinpoint what's affecting me so I could fix that problem and move on. I'm sure I'll be able to do that eventually, but, and this might sound silly, I think I'm going through mental growing pains. I'm making so much progress, so rapidly, that the alarm bells are still going off because that's what they've been doing for most of my life. I guess that's what anxiety is, but it feels so DIFFERENT to the anxiety I used to feel.
Let's go back to that perfectionist conversation though. I am a product of a one track minded, workaholic perfectionist who has centered their entire life around a job they hate. The other half of me comes from a Renaissance soul type, who does a lot of things but gets bored quickly and doesn't seem to care enough about anything to be passionate about it. I'll let you in on a little secret, that's a really difficult combo to have swirling around inside your gene pool (cesspit.)
None of my immediate family were able to overcome those barriers. It's either too passionate to the point that everything else dropping away, or not passionate enough to find fulfillment. And who knows, maybe they will overcome those things, my intelligence and creativity and drive (at least the natural inclinations) had to come from somewhere too. I just don't want to wait until retirement to find that balance.
And maybe it's the narcissist in me (that I may have inherited) to even put this out there, because I know there's actually a chance that someone reads this. Things online don't go away, but if anyone is reading this, whether it's me in the future, an employer, or someone who admires my work, I desperately hope that you know me as a better person who was able to keep the good parts and discard the rest.
I didn't think that growing up, and growing up correctly, would be so scary. There are so many undesirable things about me that I'm now recognizing, but up until this point I wouldn't have been able to self reflect like that without being absolutely devastated. The most mature thing I can do is face those internal problems head-on, even if it's currently a lot more uncomfortable than if I continued to push it away and ignore it.
I cannot just 'work hard' anymore. I can't give up anymore. I have to consider myself and my feelings, and lately, I've been doing a great job. Let's hope I can keep it up, eh?
I don't know how to end this, but I've picked up learning Swedish again and I think it's a good analogy, so here it is. I quit so many times before because I didn't feel like I was making any progress, and it felt like a chore to do the 20 minute lesson every day. But after my epiphany/rebirth/whatever it all started clicking with me and I am doing so well and having a great time learning Swedish. It wasn't that I couldn't do it before, it was that I was impatient, not slowing down to learn the mouth shapes and the grammar, and thinking of it as just another thing I need to get done today. I'm starting to see results because I'm finally not beating myself up for not understanding it perfectly the first time. I still can't really form sentences in my head and speak them, but I am getting better and reading, writing, and pronouncing them. And I am having a great time.
Also look at this cool stuff I did.
I am killin' it.
I'll talk about my thesis in my next post, but honestly I can't promise it won't devolve back into this heavy stuff. Just a forewarning.
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