What I've been waiting for.

I have been MIA. Sorry about my absence.

(My mom and I at graduation)

But, I have finally graduated college.  Saturday I put on my cap and gown and sat through my undergraduate ceremony.  I now have my B.F.A. in Painting and Drawing. Whew.

I started my journey through college in August of 2003, right after high school graduation. It's been rough, and at times I didn't think I would make it to this day.  I took time off, dropped classes, left the country, got engaged, got my heart broken, worked too much, broke hearts, partied, made mistakes, pulled all nighters, and then...really started to love school in my last three semesters. So much that I put off one gen ed and kept taking courses because I had such a passion and commitment to creating new work in classes. But now here I am- DONE, and sad that it's over....so I registered for another advanced drawing class in the spring because let's face it, at this point I love school and I love my professors at Iowa!  And while I wait the anticipated letters of acceptance/rejection from  my list of well established grad schools, I will spend my time making more work...because I've never been so happy as I am when I'm making something out of nothing.

Hindsight is marvelous. My point in writing this is that sometimes you don't realize why things happen the way they do until after its over.  I couldn't understand why the man I loved since I was an adolescent  fourteen year old suddenly quit picking up the phone one day.  Why this made me go crazy.  Why giving up everything for him wasn't enough. Why one semester of school was too long for him to wait for me to move across the world to him...I know, I'm stretching pretty far here.

Truth be told, I wasn't thinking about myself.  I didn't have a good enough relationship with my myself to be able to make it work with someone else.  In building the most important relationship- the one with myself- I have finally found what it means to be happy.   And I don't need someone else to fill a "hole" because it doesn't have to be empty anymore.  I want bigger and better things, I have a drive to succeed. I want to be somebody. I believe I have the strength and abilities to be true to who I am.  I have wonderful friends and family to be there with me through the journey.  And this took lots of mistakes and learning to realize...and yes, I'm probably being extra corny. But darn it, if I wouldn't have stayed here and learned what I did in the past 2 years, I could still be trying to fill the "hole" with a man who didn't know how to.

I can't thank everyone enough for supporting me through thick and thin.

(A dark room photo I did back in 2006, when making art really started to be something more.)

Really, hindsight is marvelous.