You were meant to be more.

This plan for this blog is to share the truth of what it means to be a creative person in the real world. And I know I’ve been slipping in my posts but life threw me some curveballs and I’ve been working to push back.

I don’t know about you but I get so caught up in the make-believe world that everyone posts about on social media and it gets so hard to not have feelings that I’m not good enough.

But I am. I just have to work at telling myself that.

Every.

Day.

But a little backstory about me.

I was the oldest of 3 born to mentally ill parents that quit school very young. They had no education, no goals, no dreams, and no aspirations to be better than who they were.

Since they had no goals for themselves, they had no way of teaching their kids to have goals either. It’s a dog-eat-dog world. Every man for himself.

Being the oldest I dealt with a lot.

At an early age my parents realized I was smart. Not crazy genius smart - but more than they were prepared for. I owe a lot of that to my grandmother who taught me how to brush my teeth, read, and write. She taught me my colors, my numbers, and by the time I started school, my teacher suggested I be moved from kindergarten to the 2nd grade. My dad was okay with it but my mom was jealous. And so I stayed with the other 5 year old’s.

I became too familiar with being held back in so many areas of my life.

A lot of artists say they have been drawing as far back as they can remember. That’s not my story.

I remember getting crayons and coloring books and using them to escape the traumatic childhood that was my life. My mom was so young when she quit school, she never learned to read or write and her parents were just like mine; no goals or dreams to live a better life.

As a child I dealt with a lot of emotional, physical, and mental abuse. We barely had food, most of the time we didn’t have running water or electricity, and if it wasn’t for the Salvation Army, we would have never had Christmas. It was hard but I was strong.

And I knew I was meant for more.

Fast forward to high school and the divorce of my parents. They split and I went to live with my aunt and uncle. Much better living arrangement but still no one had goals or dreams of a better life. I didn’t plan on being an artist. In fact I was going the opposite direction – I was going to join the marines.

Growing up without feeling like I belonged, I wanted to join the military so that I would have a place to call home.

But the universe had a different plan.

My senior year in high school I met with a recruiter who said that even though I was physically and mentally strong enough, he felt that life had a different idea in mind for me and he denied my application. I was shocked and pissed.

This guy was cutting me out of my chance to have a family.

If I could meet him one more time, I would thank him.

8 months after the recruiter turned me down from joining the marines, I would go onto meet the love of my life. We dated for 3 weeks and have been together for over 20 years. He gave me 2 great kids and I finally have the family I wanted so much when I was growing up.

Why am I telling you all of this?

I’m not ashamed of my story. Because it’s my story.

I’m telling you this because I didn’t come from a background of confidence, of support, hell I didn’t even gets hugs and kisses. So it’s made me understanding and embracing my passion a whole lot harder.

I don’t think I’m good enough. I don’t think I’m talented. I don’t think I have anything special about me that makes me stand out.

But as I write my own story, the fact that I survived all those years living with my parents makes me realize that I AM strong enough and more than capable of living my best life.

As an artist.

And that’s what I want to tell you.

Even the most successful of artists have struggles. And pains. And fears.

Maybe they had warm beds, lots of food, hugs, kisses, and supportive parents.

But they could be missing a partner, a child, a sibling, a grandparent, or maybe they grew up in a warzone and barely escaped with their life.

My point is just because you think you’ll never make it, doesn’t mean you won’t. You have to keep going. You have to keep trying.

You have to keep figuring out where your place is because there is a place for all of us.

I don’t know where my place is either, but I know I have one. That’s why I feel so strongly about writing this blog.

I know being an artist is so much more than just drawing and painting pretty pictures. There is a lot of mental power and emotional strength that goes into being an artist. We share the most vulnerable parts of ourselves to the world. Hoping that someone will pay for a piece of our souls. So we can keep going.

It’s not easy and I know this. But everyone that has ever done anything worthwhile has struggled.

Maybe you won’t be a millionaire illustrator, a world-renowned cartoonist, or have your art hanging in the fanciest galleries around the world. Maybe art isn’t your thing. Maybe you want to be a writer, a teacher, a doctor, whatever your vision for your life looks like, it’s important for you to keep going forward towards it.

Just remember that nobody is perfect and that no matter what you see online, everyone has things they wish was different in their life.

We only see a snapshot of their life, not their entire life story.

Nobody gets to the top of a mountain without having a few stumbles along the way, no matter how many filters or special effects they use in their videos.