I've been quiet lately but I've been working.
There are pieces of my current set up which are not perfect. Whether that's home or work, they have their challenges, but the good news is it's been pushing me more towards my art.
Last weekend I was in my first art gallery! For the set up I used a vintage washboard and trunk, and a jewelry box that looked like a tiny dresser. My amazing goddess of a best friend came early to help me put it together, and it was just perfect. The night was perfect. I had friends come from my current job, my last job, my college, high school, middle school, AND elementary school. Together I had eighteen years of my life represented. I sold eleven prints. I wore a flower crown. The night was perfect.
I have never felt more understood, supported, and loved.
I am lucky. I am very very lucky.
And it feels like I've hit fast forward on my artistic ambitions. I'm in an acting class helping me dust off the cobwebs and fine-tune myself now. I made my website. I have a reel. Sure, it's not perfect, but it gets the job done. And with it I've made a Backstage profile and am finally submitting and auditioning.
All of this has happened in the last month. I have lived in this city now for a year and a half, and I'm doing this now. Perhaps it's been fueled by not being able to talk to people during the day like I used to. Maybe it's my impending birthday. Honestly though, I hadn't realized this until yesterday, I think it's my health.
Towards the beginning of February I saw that my most recent blood panel had the marker for lupus. Previously I'd had doctors tell me that my symptoms matched, even if the test was negative. I've gone through the motions years ago. Fear, dread, defiance, and acceptance of the possibility. But seeing this semi-conclusive piece of evidence shook me. I am someone who is informed and often scared, making me a terrible patient. I know the rules of the medical game and that no one wanted to make the diagnosis or even acknowledge it. I repeatedly asked for a specialist, typically the only ones who diagnoses but requires the diagnosis in order to see you (yes it is a paradox) and finally finagled my way into an appointment...for the end of April. So this has been slow cooking in the back of my mind.
A friend pointed out that if it is lupus, then I've already been living with it and it changes nothing. That's true to a point. I'm used to my smorgasbord board of autoimmune diseases. They are vast, but have their limits. Crohn's is anywhere in the digestive track, but only the digestive track. Arthritis my joints. Asthma my lungs.
Lupus is anywhere in my blood stream. So that encompasses my digestive track, joints and lungs... but that also includes the brain and heart. It's rare, but so am I. I know how to anticipate my other diseases. Inflammation of brain or heart is instant. Either of those and, well...there won't be anymore blog posts.
And I want more than this. My story is vaster than this. The fire in me has yet to burn like I know it can. I realized that's been what's pushing me. I need to change the world as much as I can, as fast as I can. "Make art that gives people hope in being alive." That has been my mission statement for years. It's time to turn that into something others say about me, not just something I whisper to myself.
A really wonderful, inspirational post. I've been in a bad place with my health lately, and it was lovely to come across this in the vastness of the interwebs and know that somewhere out there someone was struggling with crud too, and, in spite of it, wanted to change the world. I don't know where my life's journey will take me, but I do know I want to make this wonderful world a better place before all's said and done. I wish you well in everything you set out to accomplish.
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