Gratitude Girl

I believe that we all go through whatever we go through - to get to where we need to be.
Over the past several years, after losing my creative self for nearly 30 years...I rediscovered my art self, my creativity. I found my passion in mixed media art. I started my blog and opened my etsy shop and moved forward toward a life of art. But these same several years were some of the toughest of my lifetime.

For 15 years - from 1994 until 2009 I was a residential real estate broker in Maine. Real estate was very good to me for many years. Everybody knows what happened to real estate after 2007.  As the market really began to slow down, my income began to dwindle. By 2008, as real estate and the economy imploded, I had taken on a full time and a part time job, while still trying to maintain a real estate career part time. By 2009 I took a different full time job that took up all my free time, and I stopped working real estate altogether by mid-year.

Throughout all this time my goal was just to keep an income coming in to pay my mortgage, and my business loans and simply 'get by'. Eventually I could not keep up. Although I was working my rear end off - I couldn't make up for an income that had dropped by more than half of what it had been. I didn't have lots of credit card debt, and I hadn't spent my home's equity...but I couldn't stay current on my mortgage, my business debt, and monthly living expenses. I was sinking.

In spring of 2011 my home was foreclosed on. Going through foreclosure and bankruptcy is a very public thing. Everybody sees your life. The advertisement to sell your home goes in the local paper, along with your name. Feelings of regret over past decisions, feelings of fear moving forward. Feelings of failure.

I limped along for another year - working hard - waiting on tables, and trying to get back in balance.  In summer of 2012 -  I went through bankruptcy to clear out all that debt so it wouldn't be hanging over me for years and years.  Bankruptcy is meant to be a fresh start, and it is - but to me it felt like the final stamp on my financial failure. Starting from zero at 55 years old. Me, my car, an apartment and a weekly income from a waitressing job. No retirement. No health insurance. No savings.

This story is a rather quick synopsis of the past 4-5 years that doesn't include many painful moments. Moments of pacing the floor at 3AM worrying about how I was going to get through the next few days. Moments lying awake thoughout the night worrying about bills, and finally falling asleep around 4am only to get up and go to work at 8.  Moments with my head on my desk in my office at 9-o-clock at night, after everybody else had gone home...sobbing uncontrollably. Moments (very long moments) on the phone with the bank and local businesses to whom I owed money. Local business owners who I would see regularly in a small town of 3000. Moments of anxiety, guilt, embarassment, exhaustion.

So here I am in spring of 2013 on the other side of it all. My business is gone, my home is gone, and now, after filing for bankruptcy - the debt is gone.

A new job with benefits. Although the money was better waiting tables, my new job at a senior living community offers me health insurance, which I haven't had for years. Like so many other americans I am living paycheck to paycheck. Trying to make it to the end of the month.

So what have I learned throughout all of this?

I've learned a lot about me. I'm not a victim. I take responsibility for every decision I made. All of it - the good and the bad.

I've learned how strong I am. I've learned how positive I am.

I've learned what a wonderful man I have in my life. John was there through it all. Holding me while I cried at night. Letting me talk through the tough parts. Helping me to look on the bright side. Making me laugh.

I've learned to stay focused on what's really important.

As hard as it was... losing my house was not a tragedy. Losing someone you love is a tragedy...a house is just a house after all. (Can you believe this is a former real estate broker speaking?) This is something that I had to keep reminding myself over and over. Regardless of how much I may have loved it..it was just a house. There will be other houses someday.

I've learned about gratitude. I'm grateful for my good health, the health and happiness of my children, and John. I'm grateful for my strength, my mind, my heart, my spirit. I'm grateful for my ability to persevere and to always look for the good things. I'm grateful for the opportunities that continue to come my way. I'm grateful that I have rediscovered art and creativity in my life (see my first blog Me and Paper). This was my journey. This was just one journey of many journeys in my life.

So here I am. I'm ok. I'm better than ok. There's something very valuable in learning to live simply... to live with less. I'm happy, I'm healthy, and through it all...I'm still grateful for all the blessings in my life. I believe I'm where I need to be right now. I'm listening to the whispers of life... I'm creating art. I'm writing my posts. I'm learning to follow my passion. And the journey continues.

As I greet each day I remind myself that every day is a gift.
And I like to remember this quote by Tom Hanks as 'Chuck Noland' in Castaway as he stood at the crossroads at the end of the movie.

"I know what I gotta do now. I gotta keep breathing. Because tomorrow, the sun will rise. Who knows what the tide will bring?"

This is one of my 'Gratitude Girls', you can find others in my ETSY shop 'creekart'.







 

Me and Paper

Looking back, I realize my creative life began with paper. I grew up in a small New England mill town with two brothers and five sisters. My father worked at the local paper mill and would often bring us home stacks or rolls of paper. It was always such a luxury this fresh clean paper! I loved the feel of it, the weight of it, the smell of it. It held the promise of something and I couldn’t wait to start drawing, cutting, pasting.

Throughout school I loved art class. Loved to draw, sketch, write, and sometimes got in trouble for doodling on my school papers. After high school I started out as an art major at the local community college. But I lost interest in studying art (probably lost interest in ‘study’ period for a time). Later I went to college for business, later still became a wife and mother and my artistic self went into hiding for many years.

Now and then, as years passed, I got out my art supplies and did some drawing or painting, but always put them away again. The idea of time and place for my 'art' self, just wasn't a priority. There was no room anyway in a busy household, and I didn’t think of myself as an artist. I thought of myself as a person who 'used to do' art things.

So here I am now. Mother of two post-college children, with a home and a job and all the stuff that turns days into months and months into years. And then, not long ago, something happened which brought me back to my creative self.

My daughter came home for Christmas vacation her last year of college. She brought with her a big stack of scrapbook paper. In between studying for exams she and her friends had taught themselves to fold origami boxes and Christmas ornaments. She didn’t have much money to spend on Christmas presents and so decided to give handmade ornaments instead. She came home with a paper cutter and a lovely stack of paper and showed me how to fold ornaments and boxes. It was so much fun. I couldn’t stop making them. There were so many different designs and ways to make the boxes different sizes, each one coming out like a perfect little piece of art! I went crazy – I was making boxes every spare moment. I had no idea what I was going to do with them all, but kept making them. It felt creative, relaxing.

And just like that, paper brought me back to my creative self. Paper and the serendipity that my daughter brought to me. I soon found myself in the bookstore looking for books on variations on paper box making. In the same aisle I found books on making altered books which really intrigued me. And then books on collage. And then mixed media art. And then art journaling. I started looking through art and fabric stores for ideas. I bought gel pens, empty journal books, watercolor paints. I bought stamps and stamp pads, acrylic paints, more paper and some canvases. I began to sketch and draw. I read everything I could. I jotted down ideas in my journal. I found the magazine Cloth, Paper, Scissors and Studios. And then all the other Stampington mags. I found websites of other artists. I bought some instructional videos on art techniques. I discovered water soluble crayons! (how yummy are these to play with?) Creativity and art came back full force into my life.

I had no permanent space to do my art yet – so there was lots of getting out and putting away. But little by little I continued to find my way back to creativeness, back to art, and back to myself. I became determined that art, my art, was going to be a consistent part of my life now. I need to find the time and I will create the space.

                                                                   My studio

And now I have. And so my art journey begins (again).