So last Friday, I was pretty close to needing to take this week off as well. However, as luck would have it, I woke up today feeling much, much less tired than I did last week. Which surprises me, considering I had the art festival this weekend and I was pretty sure it was going to eat my life.

I hit a turning point. I think.

So Saturday night, I was pretty discouraged. And by “discouraged”, I mean mentally, physically and emotionally exhausted. I had invested so much time and money into the Pelham Art Festival, and this year it was dead.

I kept seeing groups of people wandering around, got all excited, then they’d turn around and their festival committee/participant tags would show. Great. I had something like 25 people come through my booth on the gala night, and half of those were other artists or assistants. It was discouraging to say the least.

So by Saturday night, when I’d only sold 3 cards to my mother’s friends, I was freaking out. Except I was so tired that my freak out consisted of me staring at the computer screen, wanting to cry, yet being too tired to, and just feeling like I had nowhere left to turn. I’d run out of answers.

I don’t know what to do anymore, I thought.

I just wanted to zone out, check out, numb out – I wanted nothing to do with life, art, selling, people, nothing, zip, nadda.

Yay for people who love me!

I pretty much owe my turn around to two people – Jesse who came over to keep me company and hug me while I zoned out, and JoVE who called me from Ottawa to talk me through it, and help me to reframe things more as a life experience than the end of the world (which is what it felt like).

I think part of the reason it helped so much was that for once in my life, I actually let people help me. I let down my guard enough to let someone comfort in my moment of despair and let someone help me reframe it and give me sound, solid business advice.

I discovered that letting people help me wasn’t so scary after all. In fact, it felt really, really good.

I woke up this morning feeling great

For the past couple weeks, I’ve been avoiding myself. I stopped writing  my morning pages in the morning, and I stopped doing yoga – anything really that involved me having to face myself. I just couldn’t do it.

This morning though, I woke up, got a cup of tea and just naturally went to write my morning pages, and then did some yoga. No fear, nothing. In fact, I wanted to. I wanted to write, I wanted to connect with my body. I felt at peace, like everything was going to be okay.

I have no idea what changed, but I like it.

Something has shifted

There’s a little bit more space inside of me than there has been the past couple weeks. I’m not really sure what happened – if there was an epiphany, I missed it. Maybe it was the fact that I actually sold things at the festival yesterday, and made some of my costs back. Maybe it was finally letting people help me. Maybe I let go of something.

Who knows. Right now, I don’t much care. I’m just happy to finally feel like I can breathe again. Sure, things aren’t perfect. But I feel better able to handle them, and that’s far more important.

I’ve also got a few things up my sleeve with my art so keep watching for cool stuff. I’ve got some cards and prints left over from the festival that I want to get moved and I’ve still got all that art sitting in my room that I’d like to clear out as well.

Gosh it feels good to be back. I missed you all so much!