I felt this way until school got out and summer started. I feel like, hey it's summer, I should be stoked! But I'm not really that stoked. I'm incredibly happy school is out and I get a break, but I feel like some of my Penny Lane freedom escaped. I began worrying about everything again and feeling inadequate in myself and in my art.
I applied for a few little retail jobs and am still waiting to hear something back. I've also spent the start of my summer cleaning out my room. It's some weird parallel world happening as I'm waiting for someone to call me back for a job while I'm sitting on my floor going through an old box of Barbies to donate. I picked up each of these little dolls and all my childhood memories started flooding back. All the afternoons that I would sit on my floor and spend hours setting up my Barbie houses and creating these scenarios in my head. I gave the Barbies a backstory and walked them through their whole lives. I had one Ken doll and he would always be the boyfriend of whatever Barbie I was playing with. I found my first Bratz doll, she still had my initials written on the back of her head and on her Tiffany blue platform shoes. I remembered my mom teaching us out to braid hair on that blonde Bratz doll. I started remembering how one of my friends got the sleepover Bratz doll and I was soooooo incredibly jealous. Ugh, I wanted that doll with the plush robe and eye mask. I still want her to this day.
Then I snapped back to reality. I am twenty years old. I'm still sitting on my floor with my Barbies out in front of me. Still smiling and waiting to be played with. I'm an adult now. My Barbie playing days ended a long, long time ago. I miss when my only worry was being envious of my friend getting the cool Bratz doll for her birthday. Now, as I'm sitting criss-cross-applesauce on my floor, I'm worrying about getting a call back from a store I applied to work at over the summer. My Barbies are still in front of me, but they are now going into a bag for another little girl to play with. (I still kept a few of them, because I am a hoarder and as a twenty year old I still need my Ashley Tisdale and Hilary Duff Barbies.)
Growing up just makes me sad, which makes me start worrying, which also makes me feel like I am unworthy of everything. Quite a crazy spiral, but unfortunately that's how my mind works.
I start worrying about if I'm going to be able to succeed in life. I know I can draw well, but there are so many people who can draw even better. People who are famous for their artwork. They are so talented and crazy successful. I feel like I'm scum at the bottom of the fish bowl that someone forgot to clean out. Like, I'm just an outsider watching all of this go down. Once I get this way I get in art/creative slumps. I still draw and try to make things but my heart isn't in it. I start beating myself up and saying that there are so many people out there who are better than me. A lot of this started stirring up again when I was applying for scholarships based on my work and entering my work into shows. My work got accepted, which is an incredible honor, but I often feel like my work is overlooked by my fellow art majors. I know it's probably just in my head, but it's how I feel. I felt like my work often got skimmed over during class critiques, which would hurt sometimes because I just wanted to hear some kind of feedback, even if it was harsh. I just wanted someone to notice work I did which is probably an awful thing to say. Then again, I really have no right to say this because I rarely commented on anyone's work either, so I have no right to get upset since I always sat quiet in my seat. I feel like I'm talking in circles.
I remember getting an anonymous message on Tumblr once after I had posted a five second doodle I had just done. The little gray shadow basically told me my work was not good and that they didn't believe I was actually in school for art. I never really thought the message hurt me, but it's been two years now and I realized that it did. To this day it still makes me mad. I feel like I've constantly tried to prove that little gray shadow wrong, which is incredibly stupid because it was probably some 12 year old kid eating Ritz in his room who knew nothing about art school. They probably don't even remember sending it, but I do. It's also a reason I rarely get on Tumblr anymore, that place is a breeding ground for cyber bullies.
My insecurities have also come back full force. I find myself scrolling through Instagram feeds wishing I looked like these girls I see, perfectly posed with comments drooling over them. They have these perfect little bodies and perfect makeup. Then I look up at myself in the mirror and I'm wearing a Weird Al tshirt with a shiny forehead and curly hair sticking out about five inches from my head and crying from an episode of Saturday Night Live. These girls are wearing expensive brands I've never heard of with perfectly matte lipstick and "curly hair" (aka hair that is barely wavy but classified as "lol super curly") with a pressed Kale juice in their perfectly manicured hand.
I also have realized lately how much I have not been out places. I can probably name the non-chain restaurants I've been to on one hand. I do not go out and socialize as much as I probably should. I feel like a lot of this comes from the internal belief that has always haunted me that no one likes me or wants to hangout with me, so I always did everything by myself. And honestly, I didn't realize this until now, I feel like that is why I am so attached to things from childhood. I spent countless hours alone in my room playing with my Barbies and acting out scenes from Lizzie Mcguire rather than going to sleepovers or out to eat with people. To this day I still carry some of that mentality. I still feel like no one really wants to hang out with me, so I stay in my room and write or watch movies.
The funny thing is that deep down I know, oh goodness do I know! That I was made how I am for a purpose. I know God put this yearning in my heart to write and create, because the release and emotion I gain from it is like nothing I've ever experienced. I know I have talent. Other's talent does not disqualify my own. I have progressed as an artist and am talented enough to be successful, even if I don't place in exhibitions or win scholarships. It doesn't undermine my talent. I know I'm not ugly. Again, God made me this way. God put the curls in my hair and the oftentimes ungraceful-ness in my step. He made me overly-sentimental. He put so much love in my heart that sometimes it bugs me but most of the time I am thankful for it. I never realized how much I kick myself until recently. All throughout high school I didn't think of myself as the smartest person. I never made bad grades but I never saw myself as smart. I got to college and saw the grades I was making and it hit me, I feel so lame saying this but, I'm not an idiot. I have more in my old noggin than I realized. I used to just go with the flow and believe things other people said and didn't trust my own thoughts. But God gave me the ability to make my own decisions with his guidance and to not lean on what others are saying. God made me the way I am to fulfill a certain purpose for his kingdom. I'm still trying to figure it out, but I trust him and know that I will find out what it is one day.
Ultimately, I believe the reason it's been hard to find my Penny Lane is that when I was feeling like Penny Lane, I was not worried about anything. I wasn't worried about what people thought of me. I wasn't worried what I looked like. I wasn't worried if I messed up. It was similar to a childlike state of thought, where I would just enjoy life. I would close my eyes and listen to music, or dance around my room with a CD on. I would wear my hair down and take my makeup off and feel just as beautiful as I did with it all on. If a problem arose, I would take a deep breath and pray that God would give me guidance to get through it.
Even though I might not be playing with Barbies on my floor anymore, I can still find the same kind of imaginative, careless thoughts that I had back then.
-Rachel xx
