Complications (or Sometimes I'm So Tired Everything Seems Very Hard)

Sometimes I think I have too many things going on in my head. I might be more successful if I were simpler, or more organized, maybe, I don't know. I've been surfing the web and looking at websites of people who are doing things I would love to do, things I never thought I could do, never thought I could make money at, so didn't try, or didn't pursue.

Why should they succeed where I didn't? Is it talent? No. Intelligence? No. Contacts? Maybe. Support? Maybe. Really I think it's all about commitment and drive.

I think I could be successful if I put myself into whatever I wanted to do. I always have been before. Commit 100% and follow through. It really isn't that difficult.

But...but...but...

I always have buts. I always complicate things, over think, get afraid, psych myself out.

Today, I was strolling in Central Park with the mommy crew, and we were passing the folks sitting out with their pencil portraits for sale, the ones who will draw you or your sweetheart or your child for eighty bucks.

A mommy friend said, "we should do that with the babies, get their portraits drawn."

I rolled my eyes and said, "They're expensive. I would never pay for that, I could do it myself." Which is true, I've done a lot of portraits, mostly self portraits in the last 20some years of my life.

And the mommy friend says, "So you don't think what you can do is worth the money?"

Shoot. Brand new friend, barely knows me at all, and she pegged me.

It all comes down to the money. I know I have talent. I know I can do things very few other people can do, maybe even no one else can do them, and yet, I don't feel, still after all these years of working on myself, I don't feel I am worth as much as other people. I don't feel as if what I can do is worth money.

And so, after decades of practicing my craft, or my crafts, I still hide them away in boxes and folders and drawers, only half heartedly trying to be published or shown or seen or heard. Never ask for money, and when I do, ask for less than I deserve. So everything I do remains, well, amateur.

So I am an amateur and not a professional, not because of the quality of my work, but because of my hang-ups and the stories I tell about who I am.

Why is being a fully realized human being so complicated?