Hello!

What do you want to be when you grow up?

I don’t think this question is for little kids or high school graduates anymore. I think about my step daughter and how she graduated high school last year and doesn’t have a clue what she wants to do. College seems like a daunting feat, yet working retail five days a week is draining her. She is talented in so many things but it is hard to tell her that she can make a career out of the amazing drawings she can create. Part of me wants to tell her to reach for her dream and never let go. That she is an amazing artist and one day her drawings will be in the hands of a young girls wanting inspiration. The adult part of me wants to tell her that it is hard having a degree in art or no degree at all. Having a good paycheck and health insurance is so hard to come by, even with that degree. I tell her about my past, and how I was too scared to go to college so I suffered in retail until I couldn’t take it anymore. My dreams of opening up a coffee shop were popped when I realized I had no credit, no money and no way of ever being successful.

I want the complete opposite for her. I want her to be able to live her best life living her dreams but be able to take care of herself. Life has a way of never working out the way we want it to. At nineteen I assumed I was going to get married to a man in the Coast Guard and travel the world with him. I ended up breaking his heart and going on a path only meant for me, a path that was jagged and hard to walk on. I came out on top though, even through the struggles of not knowing where I would end up. Life would have been a lot easier if I would have went to college, married that Coast Guard man and lived a quiet, boring life.

When I grow up I want to be happy. I want to wake up every morning, love what I do and have the ability to walk along the water with my morning coffee. I want to spread kindness and inspiration throughout the world. Let’s be honest - things kind of suck right now. If I can make one person have a better day because of what I write or what I create, I can call myself a success. Maybe I won’t publish that novel that has been in my head since I was thirteen, or that dream of owning a coffee shop won’t ever come true. What I can do is continue to make art that helps me get through the monotony of the day and that can hopefully help someone else as well.

Tiny pictures on a screen probably won’t cure world hunger or create world peace. But maybe they can put a smile on the shy teenager that doesn’t have any friends. Or a stay at home Mom that is pulling her hair out because her toddler just won’t eat their peas (sorry Moms out there but peas suck, so I can totally see why they won’t eat them!) and needs that second of happiness and inspiration.

So welcome to my little place of happiness. Let’s see what we can create!