I am a passion – driven person.

I recently listened to a Chris Anderson podcast in which Elizabeth Gilbert spoke about the difference between being passion driven and being curiosity driven – curiosity being the more sustainable flame, and passion being the powerful wildfire that, though marvelous will inevitably be squelched, leaving a barren landscape. Curiosity on the other hand, says Gilbert, brings life.

I do not necessarily agree with all she says, though I think both passion and curiosity are essential components of an artistic spirit. I am determined to keep trying to find ways to make my wildfire outlast the humdrum of everyday life, but lately is has been dragged down by just that.

Things like,

Money

Time spend driving 

Missing loved ones

Working for other people

All the inconveniences of modern life have me daydreaming of something so very different.

For those who are interested to continue reading, let me give you a glimpse at my life at this time…

I graduated with my Masters degree in May 2018. I have a Masters in Teaching degree with licensure to teach PK-12 English and Dance, received after getting my Undergraduate degree in Interdisciplinary Arts with Majors in Creative Writing and Dance. I earned those credentials with a lot of passion, a lot off commitment, and a strong faith that my art mattered. I still maintain that faith.

What’s changed is that I now must find ways to create and educate about the arts in ways that I find personally meaningful, while keeping on top of debts to the tune of 1,300 dollars of student loans and 300 dollars of car loans each month. I am starting to feel as if I had sold my freedom at 18 years old, without realizing it, in order to receive an education.

Since graduating college I have also taken on responsibility of two beautiful Treeing Walker Coonhounds, two dogs who came to my door unprompted 4 months apart, both starving, deathly sick, and asking for help. This, while maintaining relationships with a boyfriend of going on 7 years, beloved sisters who live in different states, and a dad stuck alone in our childhood home trying to sell it off before we lose it.

I currently hold 4 different part time jobs across 200 miles of Virginia in the attempt to  pay off my loans and support myself and my dogs at jobs I find relevant to my passions. All of these jobs are devoted to dance and the arts, all of these jobs involve working for people with somewhat different visions of the arts than my own. On that front, I am not complaining, except that if I’m being honest…. I am complaining. I am a picky artist with stubborn visions, and though it is true that I can respect most, if not all interpretations of the arts (as long as the intentions are towards their advancement), If I were not a slave to debts making up over 50% of my monthly income I would drop a couple of those jobs and devote the extra time to my own artistic visions. But alas… in 9 years maybe.

As you can see I’ve let myself become self-pitying… a terrible look on me. And although it might sound the opposite, this post is in rebellion against my self-pittying stance on my current life predicament. 

I am failing.

It’s true.

I am driving over 1000 miles each week, working for so many people/ companies I can hardly keep track, and I am still not earning nearly enough to make it by on what I owe monthly.

BUT.

This post is about recognizing my efforts. I have done all this, I am doing all this, and I am continuing to try and make it. Though I am FAILING I am PREVAILING. I am proud of my two beautiful Pups who after intestinal worm treatment, mouth surgery, and putting on a collective 30 pounds between them are happy and healthy. I am impacting the lives of young people through dance and sharing my expertise, though my personal vision for dance as an art is not yet recognized in it’s own merit I am beginning to become vocal about it in my classrooms and to my employers.

I believe my biggest failure in these past months of struggling to make it has been not WRITING. Through my whole life, writing has been my way of keeping track of my center, tracking myself. Writing is the way I remind myself  that as long as I am PREVAILING, I have not yet FAILED.