Who actually relaxes during the holidays, really? I know I don’t. Don’t get me wrong, I cherish my loved ones, of course! It’s just that the end of the year comes with a lot of obligations and expectations, which I find draining. I’m sure you relate— parties, gifts, multiple types of exchanges, traveling, phone calls, writing cards, decorations, cooking. Fun stuff! But sometimes it gets in the way of actually enjoying the festivities. Thank god it’s finally January.
In the same way that holidays come with draining obligations, I’ve found the expectations I placed on my art practice to be draining my creativity. Two or three years ago, I pivoted my whole life in a way that I always dreamed of. My art career became my primary source of income. Since then I’ve felt immense relief, freedom, and daily gratitude. At the same time, I worry about money regularly in a way that recently caught up to me.
The worries strangle the work.
It’s nothing new. I’ve always been in and out of credit card debt. Worrying about money exists as a deep hum in the background of my mind. It comes with the territory of being lower class. En and I make it work together. While I try to practice a certain sort of meditative acceptance of my circumstance and look on the bright side every moment, well… current events have gone the way they have. How do we make peace with a dream just out of reach and a world designed to pull it further away?
I’m self taught in almost every aspect of being an artist and being self-employed. Over the course of my young adult years, I learned a lot by studying from peers I perceived as successful, checking in with myself, and bouncing ideas off friends. My teen self would be so proud. I worked hard to get here! I don’t want to give up on my art career, so now I have to learn how to hang on.
It’s the year of the horse, time to grip with your thighs and hold on tight, partner.
The holidays may not be relaxing— grappling with your art practice certainly isn’t— but you know what is? Spending a weekend next to a woodstove, surrounded by friends in a snowy little house. It’s a cute, perfectly decorated, clean house with interesting animals and over half a dozen lesbians, many of whom are expert chefs and baristas making meals planned so thoughtfully by the hosts and guests. It’s the kind of weekend where you can take a nap upstairs and hear your friends laughing from the floorboards. You teach each other how to play card games and dominoes. Some people go on runs, some lift weights, some drink, some smoke.
We had the kind of weekend where we do laundry for each other and borrow clothes (and accidentally take bras back that don’t belong to us). We dress up to go out to dinner. We listen to music and make chocolate chip pancakes and sleep in and watch movies with popcorn and candy. We make hotpot and desserts, do dishes, take the dog out on a walk. This kind of love makes it easier to be alive. This kind of love makes you wonder what you would be without it, and you’re grateful you never have to know.
Spending a weekend with friends to recharge helped me clear my mind of the art career madness. All that creativity and love around me recharged my battery. Now I remember why I even make anything at all. I have to choose joy.
AH SHIT I FORGOT TO LIVE HONESTLY. I DENIED MYSELF JOY. FUCK.
This weekend recalibrated my brain to look towards that bliss which is my brightest north star. While I may still be whale eyed and uncertain, same as everyone, I have to keep choosing joy. I have to do things because they are fun and fulfilling and make me happy. I can’t put myself in the bone crusher. After all… art as a job? It’s completely optional. No one dies if I quit. So, if I’m gonna do it, it has to make me happy, and that’s what really matters in the end.
I hope what I make is good, and I hope I get to keep doing this for a long, long time. And I hope you stay. And I hope it makes you feel good and reminds you to choose joy and inspires you and entertains you and I hope it makes the world a better place and I hope I can shave off even a bit of my love and sprinkle it widely across my life and yours.
Thank you for being here, and thank you to my friends! Now 2026 can really begin, and I’m ready.
(This is an early access to the blog post that goes out tomorrow on my website.)