34-year-old single female artist

“Let everything happen to you. Beauty and terror. Just keep going. No feeling is final.” — Rainer Maria Rilke

Here I am, world. A 34-year-old, intelligent, passionate, driven, attractive single woman, living with my parents.

Yeah, I know. But here’s the thing. It’s not because I couldn’t go get a “real job” if I wanted to. Nor because I couldn’t find some man to bankroll my life if that would make me happy.

It’s because the only thing that has ever made me happy is creating my art — unhindered.

This is not where society would have me be.

This is not culturally endorsed behavior.

This is not “normal” thinking (duh).

Yet I’ve never known another way. Nor do I want to.

Okay actually that’s not true. I tried the other way. I tried corporate life. I tried the Trader Joe's route. I tried doing social media for an adorable little consignment shop. I tried a lot of things. Every single one of them left me devastated.

My spirit refuses to bend to another’s will. The idea of having a boss makes me unreasonably angry, even when I am doing creative work. Because it’s not my work. It’s not what I was born to do. And I know because I die a little every time I try.

I’ve been in three relationships — well, eight, if you count the situationships — in the past six years. Some of those men wanted to give me everything. The swanky condo. The bills paid. The easy, breezy, nothing to worry about life.

But it always felt wrong.

Not because they weren’t good men. But because, in some way, it always came at the cost of what I am unwilling to sacrifice: my voice. My solitude. My art.

And if there’s one thing I know about myself, it’s this:

I will not stand for anything that compromises my ability to create. To become. To evolve.

Sure I’m stubborn. What can I say? For the right guy, it’ll be part of my charm.

The Unexpected Gift

Let’s get this out of the way: I know I’m in a privileged situation. So I am making the very very best of it I can. I milk every moment of every day figuring this shit out. I am in my studio 12 hours a day most days, a vessel of receptivity. Maybe it’s overkill.

I mean yeah sometimes I go into the kitchen and practice a little tradwifing (fine I admit it, I totally wanna do that… as long as there are no children involved and my husband doesn’t bother me during working hours, wink wink universe.) Whatever, I've always been independent.

Okay, that aside, living with my parents as an adult has been one of the greatest gifts of my life.

After a nine-year emotionally abusive relationship with the man I almost married (which was INSANE but also I’m a real life runaway bride and that’s great story material), my bond with them was horribly severed. And I didn’t realize how much that shaped the way the world occurred to me — until I did.

So what a gift it is, that since I’ve lived here, I have done something I never thought I could do with my parents: forge true friendship.

When I was younger I had this idea that my mom wanted us to be like Lorelai and Rory Gilmore. And I resented that closeness. Well actually, I feared it. I craved distance. I was overwhelmed by connection — by people, by their emotions, by my own emotions and sensitivity. I didn’t have the tools or knowledge to handle my own energy, let alone anyone else’s.

So that was a thing.

My mom is sensitive too. Bursting with energy. We are so fucking simliar it’s insane. Now that I don’t have the hormones of a love-crazed 13-year-old (love-crazed 34-year-old is wayyy different 🤪) I see that as a gift we share. But before, it was a wedge between us.

Now? We go grocery shopping together every week, and it’s a riot. I shake my ass and dance down the aisles and she looks at me in horror and it’s one of my favorite things in the world. Then we come home and unload the groceries and my dad just stands there baffled, yet endlessly entertained.

I’ve never known two people who support me as fiercely and unconditionally as they do.

Every year, my dad writes me cards telling me, in different ways, I’m the most brilliant person he knows.

Every step of the way, my mom backs my unhinged artistic dreams—even the ones that haven’t panned out yet.

I’m working on it.

The Dream That Answered My Question

Last night, I asked my subconscious a question before I fell asleep:

"How do I make money doing what I love? How do I make money writing poetry and sharing these teachings the way I see them—through a poetic lens?"

Cause yeah, let’s be real, I wanna make money doing something valuable for the world, and I believe with every cell of my being that offering ways to alter consciousness through the poetic lens is the way.

So I had this dream.

In my dream, I was on a game show.
Everyone else had been there before. Everyone else knew the rules.

When the game started, they all frantically sifted through piles of trash and clutter, searching for answers.

At first I looked on in disbelief, but then I stepped forward and simply spoke what I saw. I let the words flow through me. And somehow, I won the game.

Which was as confusing to me as it was to the host—who looked like Bob Barker. He stood there and stared at me like I had cheated the system.

Of course, I hadn’t.

I had simply spoken the truth… and the game chose me as the winner.

The Business of Poetry

I believe this is the role of the creative: to figure out (through whatever trial and error they must, like say noticing how your creative energy ebbs and flows through a series of 8 relationships in 6 years) the system that works for them — which might mean recognizing that their system is decidedly not the one the rational world has tried to shove down their throats.

The artist is their own system. Their own world. Their own way of seeing. Their own way of creating sustainable, joyful abundance. Abundance that flows from their inner metaphysical well, into their bank account.

To some, this will occur as me being stubborn. But I know there is a way to thrive, as an artist, in this 3d reality with ease, joy, pleasure AND financial resource.

As an artist, I don’t want to convince anyone to believe anything.
I want to remind you of what you already know — that by supporting each other as artists, we create a more beautiful world from the inside out.

One of my first mentors told me:

"There’s nothing I can tell you that you don’t already know."

And that is the business of poetry.

Not telling you anything new. Just helping you remember.

If there’s one thing I want you to remember today, it’s this:

Wherever you are right now—it’s perfect.
There’s not a grain of sand out of place.
It’s just a matter of how you look at it.

“Let life happen to you.
Believe me: life is in the right, always.”
— Rainer Maria Rilke