Flightless bird

Hey kids

Ohh, look. I haven't been blogging much. But anybody who knows me even in the slightest wouldn't be all that surprised. A nice way to put it would be to say I'm a free bird. I don't like to be tied down...I like to do as I please. I just say it's sheer laziness, but who's counting, right?

This year has already been full of new experiences and lost emotions. I said it was going to be a good year; I had anticipated many laughs and memories. What I didn't know, is that those memories would be those of my reoccurring past. Don't take it negatively. There's beauty in the fragility of those very moments that so carefully yet fatefully create and define the very person I have grown in to over the years. Now some may argue that I shouldn't exactly be proud of who I am, or who I have yet to become. But I guess a big part of growing up is being able to take that with a grain of salt, and find true happiness within yourself; altogether knowing you're a good person with faults and a future. I've always said...you either fix your faults, learn to live with them, or be miserable. But never complain. You can only put the blame on your circumstances for so long until even you can't feel sorry for yourself anymore. Now, it's a little daunting to know that I may be held to these words, but I feel that I have hit a point in my life over the past year where I have accepted and embodied this state of mind. I don't feel sorry for myself. It takes a lot to say that...oddly, more so than admitting that I DO in fact feel sorry for myself. I could elaborate on that, but I think I'm still internally working on that part... I'm bound to type it out at some point.

Something I have found absolutely intriguing these past few weeks, is my utter need to feel. I am a thinker. Maybe not on the scale of most brilliant minds, but I opt to use my head rather than my heart. I trust my mind. It is a comfortable and safe place. Often in disarray, but more times than not, I make the right decisions, or use my common knowledge to get me out of a bad one. After taking the time to think this through, I've realized that the reason I'm a "thinker"...is that my heart is positively erratic. My artistic nature was rather obvious at a young age. I was deeply inspired by my dads ex wife, Canadian artist Melanie Williams. In a family full of jocks and scholars...I painted, wrote, sang and danced my way through my early years, trying to ignore the fact that I was obviously the less favored of the children. Unless I could slam dunk, skate backwards, or make the Deans list, I would be (and was) ignored. And so I set out to be an accepted kid, achieving 90's in school, and being the best damned bench warmer on any team that would have me. I wasn't by any means the all-star. But at least now I was being asked how my day went. I had something in common with the useless and mind numbingly boring chatter circulating the dinner table. I'd get the odd recognition for random art I left laying around the house, or my grades in dance classes...but at the end of the day, all anybody really cared about was the latest stats my all-star kid brother was ranking. And I grew to accept it. I was raised in a logical, "thinking" family. There was no chance of having my inner artist nurtured, so I went on growing and learning the only way I was ever taught.

So now that I'm older...(like every young person does after being thrown in to "real life"...) I've begun thinking about what makes me who I am. Well, I know who I am. But WHY I am...ya know? Why am I drawn to art and music and beauty and how it is that I just "get it"...and yet, I am not a frivolous person. (I don't mean that in a negative sense...more like..whimsical..ethereal..etc...). I just don't get people who like to fight because it's "passionate" or who just "have" to do things because their "heart" says so. I really don't get it, and I don't know that I ever will. My "heart" tells me to do lots of things, but it seems childish and basically just immature. I'll never understand "closure". Or love being a "feeling". Maybe I'm missing out. But it all just seems a little naive...

This all being said, can somebody PLEASE explain to me how I cannot "follow my heart", but a painting can completely consume me to the point of tears?

This seems to be my greatest inner conflict. There's so much I have to think about. So much to learn. For now, I think I'll just continue to let myself be. Doing all I can to the greatest of my abilities...and just hope that answers will come to me with experience. At times I feel like a walking contradiction. Or maybe I need to learn that not everything can be defined or explained.

Dreaming in black and white,

Alannah Leigh