You have been feeling this for quite a while now, failing to pinpoint when it started. Was it when someone called you out for being over-enthusiastic about your work? Was it when you failed to meet the expectations you have set up for yourself? Was it when you were told that nothing good will come out of your ‘art’?
It may have been all this or it may not be but there’s one thing certain. One day, you just woke up and things have changed. Your pen was heavier than usual. The colors looked dull. Music no longer held magic. Has it always been this way? And as if the everyday struggle wasn’t enough, the pandemic came. You are now forced to face the things you tried to drown in parties and night outs and out-of-town trips.
The world stopped but the storm you held within continued to brew even more. And as you look in your room, you realize that all you have now are unfinished versions of your works. After a very long time, you realized that you have stopped calling yourself an artist. You have stopped creating. You have stopped clinging onto what was once your lifeline.
And I tell you, it’s okay. It’s okay to stop midway. It’s okay if all you have now are ideas in your head. It’s okay if you’re flame is now an ember of what you used to be. An artist will always be an artist no matter how much break he takes. I assure you, it will not end here. You may not create the same way as before but that is only because you have changed. Your work will take on a different shape, a different perspective, a different tune, and yet, it will still be you.
So maybe, just maybe, you have to stop measuring yourself by the standards of a society that sees value in shallow figures. You are beyond that. You cannot measure something that refuses to go along with the system. An artist will always find a way to go against the current, against everything that we are all too familiar with.
You are someone who sees the magic in-between spaces, who sees dreams in canvas, who sees the birth of lullabies amongst silence, of course, you will be different. Your path will be a rollercoaster of adventures in every turn but it will be yours for the taking and you will take it. You know you will.
Photos by W W from Pexels and The Coffee Creatives