Can I Be Both?

This started out as something completely different. I've had this idea for a while now. I'd wear a nice dress, put on heavy makeup, look more "polished" than is normal for me. Then I thought, get those cool 1940s curtain panels that are in the basement. Hang them up. Stand in front of them. Get a light bulb, do a long exposure with the light bulb swinging. It'll all come together and look awesome.

Well, after two hours of shooting I decided to stop. There were many tries and fails. Or maybe not exactly fails, but certainly not the look I had envisioned. I was frustrated and felt I'd wasted my time. I was angry at myself for not being able to reproduce the vision I had in my head.

I went to that place I often find myself when things aren't going the way I want them to go.
That place of doubt. That place where I'm a big nobody with no talent. That place where mistakes are never forgiven. That place I'm so familiar with. That place where all the negative things I hold about myself live.

It's a place I mostly keep to myself. I skirt the edges of it in conversations with other people, but I never share how deep it lives in me. How ensconced it is. How I sometimes see it as a creature that lives inside me. In a dark, dark corner of my psyche. This creature loves it when I fall into the hole of self-criticism. It feeds on my doubts. Revels in my insecurities. Cackles with pleasure when I let jealousies or envy enter my consciousness. It's a dark little fiend.

But that sort of thinking implies that I have no control over what goes on on my head. There's no little gremlin in there forcing me to say mean things about myself. No creature whispering in my ear.

It's just me.

Say it once with feeling,

I'm the dark little fiend.

Does that make me a terrible person? A bad friend? A talentless hack?

No, not at all. It just makes me human.
I fuck up sometimes.
I do wonderful things sometimes.

One doesn't cancel out the other.

There's a darkness in me that I can't always explain or understand.
There's also a light in me that I feel down to my very core.

One doesn't cancel out the other.

They can both exist in me side by side. Reflecting the complex human that I am.

I'm dark and light.
Sunshine and clouds.
Black & white and color.
Joy and pain.

One doesn't cancel out the other.

As I near the end of this project; I see even more clearly how sharing my thoughts and stories, especially the ones I am most reluctant to discuss, is so important to my own growth. I am often afraid that people won't like me when they hear what I have to say. When they learn I'm a bit of a mess at times, will they judge me harshly? Maybe so, but I can't let that stop me. This project has shown me that I have to speak my truth, that all the years I spent silencing myself were killing my soul. I won't do that any longer.

So here is my second to last self-portrait. It's blurry and maybe a bit confusing, but it's also colorful and interesting. It tells the story of a woman coming into her own as an artist, one who is willing to push herself beyond her comfort zone and into the unknown. One who accepts her flaws while honoring her attributes. I like her.

It's as simple as that.

I like me.