So it’s just one of those days where I question if I’m doing the right thing. I’ve done it before, right in the middle of a career, and started over again. But I hope this time I have found the right answer. At least for a longer while. I can’t stay in a career where every day I question if I’m really making a difference, when every step leaves me with a foul taste. Hobbies are different from passions; I’ve learned that the hard way.

Today I reached out to acting and modelling, something I haven’t done in about 10 years. I put myself out there, dipped a toe into those waters, but really I don’t want it, no matter how glorious it looks. I like my ‘dusty’ research, I like learning and the thrill of discovering something that not many others care about. It’s just one of those things everyone wishes to try because it doesn’t look so hard, it gets you recognized and successful. It’s not the success set out for my own future. I’m only 23, and it seems so early in my life, but so late at the same time. Don’t you ever get that feeling? If you only started earlier, where would you be now, or why didn’t you figure it out sooner? For a while, I felt I wasted a few years on my artistic goals only to see it was a fun hobby and maybe some extra recognition and money. Now I don’t feel that way. It was an experience, and though I may not have loved every second of it, I did enjoy it. I still paint, I still write fiction and as seen below, poetry. It’s a mode of expression, and if it leads somewhere that’s its own accord. I’m not guiding it, only giving it a voice.

So that’s what I’ve chosen to write about today, that instant after the seed of doubt sets in, when you are able to take a step back and say “No, that’s not right at all.” That step back was the most useful piece of advice I was ever given in art classes. If you focus for so long on one section, the whole piece is lost. To remove yourself, give the eyes a break and reevaluate after a few rejuvenating moments, and it’s all that is needed to see what you truly need to do.

(passion or disturbance)

I stray sometimes
if only to learn the truth
do I really need another route
or is it there
to test
and make a jest of me?
A perspective, desperate
needed in times of loss
faith stays in the trail I chose
and realize
it’s all I truly need.
When glory by another name
presents itself
shiny, fresh and alluring
of course I’m drawn in
like the moth to a light
a way out of darkness
when I am in the dark
the depths of my desires
of course I question
and doubt every step
dark is hard for human eyes
I can’t distinguish the ground
from the pitfalls
I need to stop this
distracting me
no matter how tempting they may be
the appeal for something new
washes over
pulled away with the tide leaving
and pushed aground later
when it’s too deep to swim.

Am I afraid?
Take the risk
draw blood on the way
I’m scarred for life
where the passion takes hold
it has hooked on
to my heart
and will never let go.