No one ever said it was going to be easy.

As I spend a morning with a good friend and fellow artist I hear her say what I’ve voiced a million times in frustration, ‘This is so hard!’ Not the creating, not the art making. That part of things comes as natural to us as breathing.

All the rest of it is the tough stuff, the hard stuff.

Then, with barely a pause, she states, ‘But I don’t want to do anything else.’ It’s like listening to myself speak the very words I routinely tell myself. A personal mantra that, as it turns out, is used by another.

Our time together sent me digging through my notes, searching for what follows below. I wrote this eleven months ago, it remains relevant today and I expect it will continue to do so into the future. A part of me wonders if, after reading it, my friend will feel she could have written it herself.

I can do this.

No matter how difficult it may seem.

It is worth it.

There are no other choices.

There is no other path.

From the beginning,

this is all there is.

I want this,

beyond anything else,

beyond anyone else.

From now until the end.

But, not for me.

Not that One me.

But for the many parts of me.

All who cry out for the same thing.

This!

I may not have asked for this life.

Even lamented…

How unfair that the choice was made for me.

With total disregard

for what I may have wanted.

Yet…

Here is where I am.

Through choices.

Through options.

I have created this path.

I want all that it has to offer,

the stomach clenching highs

and heart crushing lows.

A soul never truly at ease.

I can do this.

No matter how difficult it may seem.