dreams

I want to create. 

I feel like since the rebirth of my self (esteem), an undeniable urge has been growing inside of me to create art.  Even though it's kind of an oxymoron, I was confident in high school.  This set me on a mostly creative path.  My dreams and aspirations were alive inside of me, waiting to be born.  And then, a few key things systematically broke those dreams down.

• The only college I initially applied to was Marymount Manhattan College in New York.  I wanted to attend and do theatre.  Under so much pressure from my parents, my teachers, and society in general, I ultimately grew to believe not in myself, but that this was an unrealistic dream.  It was totally unrealistic to pay upwards of $25,000 a year to do something I wasn't sure I was really good at.  Furthermore, I rationalized (with the help of my parents) that I should go to school for something more "legitimate," and practice my creativity on the side.  Besides, it's all fine and great if you want to be an actor, but how are you going to pay for that?  You couldn't possibly pay for it by becoming a working actor because that's unrealistic.  What really sucks is that I got into the school, and I never thought I could.  Hastily, I applied to a school in North Carolina simply because it was in a city, and I thought that being in a city could nurture some of the creative confidence I had.  I ended up being horribly wrong.
  
• I got myself into a relationship that drained my artistic and creative energy.  It really just drained me of everything that wasn't him - but those were the first to go.  Besides, he was the artistic one - a photographer - who was in school following his dream, learning about art and photography.  I was the realistic one, studying to become a Public Relations executive.  In addition to draining my creativity, as we all know by now, it drained my self-esteem.  Next to him, I couldn't compete nor compare.  Why try?
• I smoked a lot of pot during college.  I'm Jerri Blank.  In some ways, this revitalized my ideas and the fact that I could dream up things.  And in other ways, these dreams would never go anywhere because pot was mainly just an escape for me.  It was a way for me not to feel, not exactly a way for me to unleash my creativity.  I was too wrapped up in a different mindset.  And that mindset was getting stoned and eating fruit tarts.
  

I should say that there's no one to blame but myself for buying into the belief that my ambitions were illegitimate, unrealistic, or unattainable.  Had I believed in myself, no one else's words could have ever taken that away from me.

Now that I'm here, doing something completely on my own and powered by myself and my own motivations, I'm proving to myself how capable I truly am.  Combine that with the undeniable contagiousness of being somewhere where new ideas and self-expression are of the utmost value and intrigue and you have a recipe for an artistic explosion.  It's what I feel I'm on the verge of.

Although I suppose it is a form of art, I never consider my writing to be a valid form of artistic expression.  At least not on my blog.  I feel like in order for something to have artistic value, it has to be ornate, or be appreciated by important people.  Well, scratch that.  That's how I used to feel.  The other day, I was reading noted graffiti artist Banksy's book.  In addition to it being a showcase of his witty, beautiful art, it was a manifesto of sorts.  It was profound and it knew it.  It taught me a lesson I needed to learn all along - and that is that art is for anyone and everyone.  And that it shouldn't be restricted to galleries, or books that you have to pay for, and it doesn't need to be critiqued to be valuable.  He's got such an enviable rebellious spirit, probably owing to the fact that his chosen form of self-expression, graffiti, is illegal.  I love that spirit.  I will have it one day.

And I just want to say that I love my job.  I love my job for so many reasons, but I love it because it's putting me one step closer to following my true dream, which is to create and express myself artistically.  I'm getting financially stable, and I'm doing it at a place that I respect and serving people that I care about.  It's clear to me, though, that I'm not made for a job.  I just can't stand sitting behind a desk all day.  Don't get me wrong - I don't want to quit my job and become a starving artist.  I'm not there yet.  This work is so important to me and something I'm so passionate about.  In a way, I'm already fulfilling one of my dreams, which is to make the world a better place for others.

I just have so much more that I want to do.  And for the first time in my life, I feel like I can really do it.  Which I think may be why I signed up to take a modern-dance class in the City this weekend.  I'm nervous, but more than anything, I'm excited to do something I've always dreamed of doing.

And the thing that I never really got about dreams when all those people were telling me that they were unrealistic is that duh - yes, they're unrealistic.  That's why they call them dreams.  And that's why it's so magical when you achieve them.  And now, I'm off to Disneyland in a pink corvette that floats and is filled with fluffy white cake followed by a parade of endless unicorns.