The Funk

I ignored my alarm every single day last week. I would fling myself over to my side and slip back into a sleep full of stressful dreams (one of which involved me being in charge of Trump's presidential campaign. Sorry America). 

Awake, I would go though the motions of the day knowing my heart wasn't in it. One day, my refrigerator temporarily broke down. I opened a vacant apartment to stash the blueberries and lettuce before they wilted and rotted. I've been going back and forth between the two apartments all week, just to be on the safe side. 

The next day, the driver's side window on my car got stuck open right before a thunderstorm. I wheeled it reluctantly over to be repaired before all hell broke loose, and my Buick turned into a bathtub. This cost me a lovely sum of $477.95. I repeat, it cost me nearly five hundred dollars to roll my window up on Thursday. 

I received an email from an art exhibition for which I'd applied (and was denied) that listed and congratulated all of the 20 to 30 exhibitors that were chosen. I hadn't felt bad about not being selected when I thought only one or two people were selected instead of me, but seeing all though names made me question my skill as an artist.

Not only that but, I've pretty much given up on being able to run the Mini Marathon in May. I had my heart set on participating in that half-marathon, and then my leg did a thing. I'm not even sure what is wrong with it, but there's no running in the cards for me for a while. 

All of this built up and bubbled over into a very sad, lonely, Bulliet Rye+Pizza filled evening of self-loathing and discouragement. It just felt like I couldn't catch a break last week. I didn't even have the energy to paint. I crammed a piece of pepperoni, salami, black olive, green pepper, oniony goodness into my mouth and starred at my unfinished painting from across the room. 

"Stupid painting." No one will ever appreciate you anyway. 

The good part about having a lot of stress hit you at one time, is that you can get it all out of your system at once. I guess that's what happened to me.

So, I think I'm recovering from a kind of funk. There's not another way I can think to put it. Lately, I've been so frustrated trying to balance everything in my life. I work a lot. If I'm not leasing apartments, then I'm teaching a painting class, or I'm painting on my own. Somehow I have to fit in physical fitness and eating a healthy diet in there somewhere. It all gets overwhelming. 

I wonder how anyone keeps their lives balanced. Here I am, trying to hold together my professional life, my physical body, and my emotional well-being, and I feel like I'm just failing miserably. I am especially impressed by mothers of young children. I can't even keep my own live together, how in the world do some people care for the lives of others in addition to themselves? 

I'd like to tell you that I figured it all out this weekend; I'm no longer stressed about being too fat, and I've found a way to pay off my student loans in 5 months...but we all know this isn't true. Sometimes, accepting that things go wrong is the best starting point for believing everything will be okay. What I can tell you is that I've had a few improvements since my, Evening of Shame and Sadness (or so I'm calling it) and got some ideas for making things a little better. I've got a bit of a game plan on what I can do to give myself more balance. 

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Things That Are Good Right Now:

• My car window works better than EVER! And as my Mother constantly reminds me, "It's still less than making a car payment."
• I've sold my large painting, Windswept, for $2,000.00! I'm sad to see it go, but I'm happy knowing it will go to someone who will love it just as much as me, if not more so (because I went through hell to get it to how it looks now). 
• My cat, Athena, has been surprisingly affectionate lately. 
• I finished a book I'd been reading, Me Before You, by Jojo Moyes. Loved it. 

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• My Dad helped me hang my new curtains in my apartment, making me feel even more at home.
• New business cards came in!
• I was able to make some major progress on one of my current paintings on Saturday. It's beginning to hit that magic moment, where it stops looking like a messy blob of nothing smeared on what used to be a nice clean canvas, and starts to actually come alive in front of me. 
• I participated in a group art show at Fountain Square Brewery on Friday. Three of my pieces will be up for the month of April. Go grab a beer and take a gander if you have the time. 

​Things To Improve Life:

• I'm considering taking yoga classes. I think It will benefit my body, which apparently is lacking in the core-strength department, exhibit A: leg? groin? back? injury. 
• I'm going to make an effort to focus on easy and healthy meals, and cut back on eating all of the junk food. 
• Plan my trip to England in May...nothing makes me more excited than the prospect of a new adventure.
• I am going to find more art contests to apply to and participate in. Rejections happen, but not forever.
• I'm going to be careful about saving money, and creating a stronger emergency fund for when things (like broken car windows) cause unexpected expenses. 

​I suppose it is a good starting point. It doesn't solve all of my problems, but the best thing I can do is hold onto positivity and keep chugging a long. 

Love,

Angela DeCamp

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