nightmares and other girlish things

When I worked in the restaurant for 8+ years, It was often that I had dreams- nightmares really, not the super scary ones but the ones where I was failing at the little things in my job. In my dreams (which usually took place between shifts, making it feel like I never rested for that entire 24 hours or so) I would often run around, brain scattered, too many tables to care for well. I remember once that I forgot to get an old man a refill on his pink lemonade, that reminder was reiterated throughout the night.

I just woke up, with five hours of sleep (and no need to wake up, yet here I am, anyways) and a whole segment of camera-mares. Shooting a wedding with no backup batteries, no flash, a camera that has no lens on it and won't turn on. A scattered and torn down me. A change of events, surprises in the wedding. The one humorous part of the wedding is that as the mother of the bride is filling me in on the schedule she said, "... and then my daughter is going to pronounce themselves married."

It's crazy when something you love suddenly translates itself into the DNA of your fears. I suppose that all things that bring us life also are wildly attacked by insecurity.

Creatively/work-relatedly, I'm hardly doing any jobs this December. Just finishing up what I need to finish, and hopefully that leaves some time (or else this will continue into the first two weeks of January) to regroup creatively, prepare for a new year, set attainable personal creative project goals, know what's too much work to take on and to gracefully say 'no'. Never take a job out of obligation. Trust in personal creativity, inspired by the great Creator. Always, always keep a thankful mind/attitude towards people trusting and investing in the work that I do. Don't fear trying new things.

On that note, last night I tried painting for the first time. It was incredible. What I produced wasn't good, but creating something and killing the parts of myself that intrinsically want to say, "i'm sorry this isn't good". Artie talked about this idea in our creativity class this quarter, the idea that when you're a child, you never had someone a picture that you've made them and preface the give with a, "i'm sorry this isn't very good, but..." there's some place between childhood and adulthood that so much childlike-ness (pleasure, freedom, imagination) is replaced by pride, self deprecation and creative incarceration.

This video always gives me hope!