Conversations with old notebooks

Can I be completely honest? I've been putting writing this post off. Just like I've been procrastinating on every other creative project in my life. It's not a very good development and it's making me feel pretty un-awesome. There is one good thing that comes from my slacker attitude, though; I start doing other things to avoid writing/collaging/painting/taking pictures. For example, I spontaneously started cleaning my room yesterday. 

Looking through my overly-stuffed closet and re-organizing the pigsty that is my desk drawers meant that like a true bedroom archeologist  I dug op some objects from my past. Most of these things were either falling apart or served merely as an embarrasing reminder of my awkward past-selves, but I also found some true gems. And with gems I mean my old notebooks.

I have always loved to write and draw and tell stories in anyway possible. The notebooks from the bottom of my closet, that date all the way back to 2007, are the most honest testimony to this passion. In sloppy script and misspelled verbs I created tales about new worlds or my own. (I found an excellent account of my 6th grade compulsory swimming lessons. Hint: I did not enjoy them very much.) I almost never showed these notebooks to others, so the stories I told were meant for me and my enjoyment only. 

Enjoyment is exactly what these notebooks were all about. My clean-up plan was cut short, because I couldn't stop flipping through my old writings. The sentence structure was poor, the exclamation mark usage superfluous and the illustrations just plain awful, but they were so much fun too read. In every word the excitement of little me about writing my very own story is tangible. 

Although I was having a good time on my bedroom floor, a somewhat uncomfortable feeling crept up on me. "If I love it so much, why am I not writing right now?" my overly-active brain couldn't help but ask and that is when I realized something. The difference between me now and me with the old notebooks mostly (aside from a better knowledge of conjugations) has to do with self-conciousness. 

Lately, whenever I try to create something I can hear this little voice inside my head called perfectionism yelling: "It better be good! It better be beautiful! Do you even know what you are doing?!". Add being constantly exposed to extremely good art from others and you have me completely paralyzed with the fear of sucking. 

"But why?" would old notebook-me ask in reply. "When did creating start being about doing well or impressing others? It was all about fun, right?" And that is the moment when I realize that 9-year old me has more common sense than I do now.
She is absolutely right. Creating things is not my job, it's something those wrinkly grown-ups like to call 'a hobby'. It's supposed to be fun. For me. It does, in fact, not have to be good. (The Perfectionist shudders in horror.)

Do I want to write terrible Doctor Who fanfiction (because I think it’s fun)? “Do it!” 9 year old Sabine yells. Do I want to make a collage consisting solely of images of feet (because I think it’s fun)? “Do it!”
Do I want to make a photo series exploring the usefulness versus the aesthetics of the female body (because I think it’s fun)? “Do it!”

The stories in the notebooks I found yesterday are terrible, but they managed to make me smile even 7 years after writing them. I want all (or at least a lot of) my work to be like that, even if that means it’s not that good. Fun. Honest. Filled with the excitement to be creating. 

And now please listen to this song. Do it.

A list for feeling unalone

I've been feeling very disconnected with the world lately. Maybe it's because not much is happening in my life, or maybe it's because I'v been getting to know this thing called 'loneliness' too well. I'm constantly looking for something to relate to, some part of myself, in the world outside but I keep coming up short. So instead of fixing my lost connection, I've developed several other ways to feel somewhat unalone. Since making lists is my expertise, I decided to make a lists of the (strange) things I do to feel somewhat connected.

1. Reading all the Rookie 'Dear Diary'- posts

Almost all the time I have this very teen-angsty feeling of 'I'm so alone in my troubles. No one understands what I'm going through!' But then I read Noami's, Ruby's and Britney's entries and look at Caitlin's art here and suddenly I realize there are people in this universe who feel exactly the same way as I do. When I look at the people around me I always assume they only have rational thoughts and feelings that arise as a logical result of a certain event or happening. Reading the entries of these girls has makes me feel like I can be more comfortable with the fact that I have feelings that are weird or complicated or don't make sense at all. Going through several months in one day also allows for witnessing very visible 'ups' in the girls' lives.

2. Turning my feelings into a Tumblr tag

Sometimes when I have nothing else to do I will type how I'm feeling at that moment into the Tumblr search bar, just to see how others express their happiness/sadness/anger. Strangely enough it gives me a lot of comfort to read that some random person just found a new apartment or had a fight with his/her best friend or had to stay in bed for two days because of a bad cold. Perhaps I enjoy knowing that those things happen completely unaffected by me. That while I'm happy there are many others who feel the same way, but also many who at that same moment are having the worst day ever and vice versa.

3. Listening to Taylor Swift

I've never really been a fan of Taylor and her music was simply part of those songs that I have on my iPod, but only ever listen to when I put it on shuffle. This was also exactly how everything changed and Taylor became my best friend. On a long car ride home from Antwerp with my parents I had put my Ipod on shuffle and suddenly Taylor Swift's song 'Fifteen' came on. Too sleepy from the soft rocking of our vehicle I didn't bother to skip it and kept listening. In a heartfelt manner Taylor told me about her boy troubles, meeting her best friend in math class and her dreams of becoming a singer. This song was like all the non-events of my high school life wrapped up in a bubbly feel-good melody. I've been playing her albums on repeat ever since, because no cool indie rockband can give me the same comfort as listening to my cooler best friend sing about our lives. 

4. Writing/Drawing/Collaging

Little watercolor 'doodle' from my sketch book

Sometimes all those diary entries I read, those Tumblr posts I see and Taylor Swift songs I listen to feel like one part of a dialogue. The other part is left for me to fill in and lately I've been doing a lot of that. My diary is getting fuller faster than ever and I have my art stuff (actually an old box with paints, pencils and magazines to cut up) out several times a week. The stuff I write or make isn't always very good, but that doesn't really matter. In creating things, even if they are just about my angsty feelings,  I feel like I am contributing to some greater discussion. I sometimes secretely hope that when I'm brave enough to show my (better) works to someone they will jump up and say: "That's it! That's exactly what I have been feeling lately! Lets's become best friends and talk about how scary growing up is and make art together and share our diary entries." (Okay, maybe that last bit is a bit too much to ask for ;) )