Travelling The Wrong Path

There comes a time in every one's life when they have to reflect and decide what is important to them and whether or not they are on the path to where they wish to be going. My time to contemplate these questions occurred this past summer, around my 32nd birthday.  If it doesn't matter where you're going it doesn't matter which road you take to get there, and I've been wandering roads blindly for years now.  I've had an amazing journey, some fun times, and some not so great times, but I stopped, looked around, and realised that I was lost and wanted to start the journey home. 

I want to be creating.  I want to take these thoughts and ideas and visions that consume my days and my sketchbooks and turn them into reality.  I want to do it from the safety and comfort of my home.  I want to do it because I love to do it, and it's really a big part of who I am.   I want these things to be seen by other people.  Yes, over the last several years I've made a few things, but not to the full extent of what I've wanted.  So what's stopped me from getting on the right path and doing just that?  The paths I've been on have been the wrong ones; not necessarily going in the wrong direction, but full of unnecessary monsters.  Every step I took forward, I took in fear.  I've been living in fear of what would befall me if I didn't do the things that the monsters told me I must do.  For a long time I believed these monsters were my only friends, and I feared being alone on my journey.  These monsters told me things, and did things to me, and I lost myself.  I lost my ability to create, and to even think for myself at times.

I've met a few others while walking that path.  Good others who would creep out while the monsters were away, and try to put my broken self back together.  Gentle beings who would hold my hand and stroke my head and dry my tears and say to me, "Run.  Run, fight back if you have to,  and find some other way.  You'll never get to where you want to be if you stay on this path".

So, on the anniversary of my birth, I stood in the road and decided I can't walk that road another year.  I stood tall as monster came charging towards me and I said "no more. Take your things and go, and leave me". And he did.  But monsters don't go away so easily, and he came back, and he brought others, and I became more frightened.

Maybe sometimes it takes something dramatic to drive the point home that you're not where you want to be.  Nice fairy tale aside, I found myself a week later standing in my home, the 'monster' outside waiting for me.  I was terrified to leave, afraid of what would happen to me or my child if I walked out the door.  I spent an entire morning of my life peeking out the window to wait for the monster to give up and leave.  I contemplated sneaking out the fire escape.  Trapped and afraid in my own home, I decided that this was not going to happen any more.  I found help.  And while it'll be a long while before everything is sorted and fixed, that moment gave me power and strength to get back on the path to where I want to be.  Most helpfully, I can sleep at night.  I am a more productive person just because of that.

The first project I've finished as my new productive me is one that extends back to February when you met Paul and Bailey.  Paul Polar Bear needed his best friend to be with him, and now she's been created.  Everyone needs a friend, even if it's an unlikely friend, and this wee faerie is gratefully glad to have one in Paul.