Facing my fears: The pressure to succeed

Being my own worst enemy has been— not even a theme— but a central character in my life. It always seemed like everyone else had figured something out that I somehow missed. That feeling of walking into a room right after everyone was talking about you, that quiet awkwardness you can feel in your inner ear? Yes. That is how every room felt (and to some extent still feels). And when someone feels that level of isolation, there’s nothing to do but self-evaluate. I’ve been told I confuse people, and honestly, I think that’s fair. My greatest self-doubts have come from simply not knowing myself. Our society is so label-driven — and I get why; labels help people decide where to invest their energy. My “problem” was always the classic “friend to everyone” effect. There are roughly 700 conflicting labels I could claim, and navigating those contradictions felt like a choose-your-own-adventure situation when all I really wanted was to hang out at base camp. I never found any one group, theory, or career I was willing to full-send. This search for a community followed me well into my 30s. It wasn’t until I allowed myself a different point of view that I finally loosened my grip on those desperate nights. Especially between ages 27 and 33, I was brutal to myself. I’d sit up crying because I was convinced I had wasted my whole life and would amount to nothing. Dramatic in hindsight, sure — but back then, it was a very real pain. Now, at 37, I’m realizing that my lifelong inability to relate to anyone has somehow given me the ability to relate to everyone. Thirty-seven years of observing human behavior from the outside — and sitting alone with my own true interests — has given me a completely different lease on not just opportunity, but time itself. There’s this strange stretch of life where the rising sun and moon feel like they make an audible ticking sound. Where the fear of “running out of time” becomes the fuel for every decision. But oddly, the more time I spend now, the more time I feel like I have. More time to explain myself if people are confused. More time to exist as I actually am. The shift can only be described by the American poet, Taylor Swift: “What a simple thought; you’re starving till you’re not.” All that struggle for a truth so simple. This realization bled directly into my art. If I were a psychologist, I’d say my self-esteem issues made me push art away because I didn't believe I deserved a talent. But I’m not, so instead I’ll say this: I had a full-blown love/hate relationship with creating for about twelve years. I knew I needed to take my art seriously, but I kept myself at arm’s length from it. I had randomly drawn a dog as a free gift for an ex-boyfriend, and somehow that spiraled into twelve years of doing 5–8 portraits a year — mostly traded or sold cheaply, based on word-of mouth alone. I was proud of developing a signature style, and I genuinely prefer animals to people, so it made sense as a subject. But every portrait was made begrudgingly, after procrastinating and false-starting three separate times. I called myself a “human copy machine” and told myself I wasn’t making “real art.” What I meant was: there wasn’t a single ounce of me in the work. And so the cycle continued. I did the portraits because I was good at them and people asked for them. But the small flash of pride I felt after finishing would hit my fragile dramatic nervous system so hard that I’d instantly find twenty things I’d change. Or I’d go right back to my favorite self-critique: “No personality.” Because I didn’t know my own personality enough to put it in there. Eventually, I hit a point where I could say — proudly and unapologetically — that I am socially liberal, fiscally conservative, a conspiracy theorist, a patriot, a nonconformist who loves pop music, a tomboy and a sissy, a J.Crew cardigan over a sleeve of tattoos, a prude who swears like a trucker, a hippie who hates jam bands, a feminist who lives a traditionally structured home life, and a churchgoer who believes in the Anunnaki. And once I could say that, I knew I was finally ready to make the art I actually wanted to make