I worked on this painting this week. On the side I wrote in bright metallic pink, “IT’S OK TO BE YOURSELF”.
Everyone has an idea of who we should be – what we should be doing, what our goals should be, how we should heal, etc, etc, etc. AND, they aren't afraid to make their opinions known again and again and again.
For the longest time, I tried to mold myself to fit various expectations.
For example, on my first day of seminary at 22 years old I rolled into the parking lot in my bright yellow truck, Green Day blasting from the speakers, hair in a ponytail, ears pierced, cut off jeans, tattoos exposed … and when I walked in the building I saw that everyone around me was in suits, ties, 'professional looking clothes', etc. I immediately felt inferior and embarassed as people looked at me and I imagined them whispering about me, until a professor who had taken me under his wing in college came over with a big smile on his face and said, “don’t let this place change you.”
Over time, though, it did. I didn’t let it change me, mind you (and myself) … it just did. As a podcast guest/friend recently pointed out to me, it's what the System and the Machine of Organized Religion so often does, especially in seminaries where people are trained up, raised up, and built to go into churches and (essentially) do what they’re told.
Anyways.
I left that world a while ago and at 42 am at a place in my life where I’m embracing the “Goofy” within – the “me that I am” that I pushed away all those years ago in favor of “the me that I thought I needed to be” to make it in that world, to gain approval and recognition.
I’ve started listening to my Green Day albums again, went to see them in concert as I screamed every lyric, my hair is longer than it’s been in about 20 years, I wear what I want, I’m listening to the voice within instead of only the voices outside of me that I was told “know better” than I do … it’s a new time of life, learning to “BE OK WITH BEING MYSELF” and not shrinking myself, changing myself, hiding myself, etc.
My beliefs are expanding.
My ideas are evolving.
My inner child is becoming more free.
Want this painting? Suggested price is $250 (for time, supplies, canvas size, etc) but if you send me an offer within your budget (whatever it is), it's yours - reply to this email and let me know.
Glenn || PATREON / ART STUDIO