paint.

I find myself sitting in the room where all of my paints, brushes and anything else art-related is stored. As I roll out a piece of wax paper to begin mixing paint on, I can't help but feel like one thing I truly love never really cared for me back. Art was my passion. Upon nearing my high school graduation, I figured that I could take my passion and turn it into a career. I busted my ass putting together a portfolio, meeting with professors, and staying after school to keep making things. All summer I could hardly think of anything but all the art classes I would be taking. By the second week of the semester, I loved my art history class more than I could imagine and was completely obsessed with my 3-D Design class. But have you ever felt like you were giving your best to something only to fail miserably at it? I feel that way about 2-D, a class I needed a C in order to continue being an art major. I fucking cried over that class, tried to email my professor and spent hours in the CVA trying to understand the assignments we were given. For the first time in my life, I felt like a blind person trying to read letters off a page. For the first time in my life, I felt like something I had once loved so much didn't love me back. It was as though I was in a bad relationship, spiraling downwards and I was holding on for the ride. I dreaded going to my art classes and I no longer felt excited to start new projects. The night I officially switched myself out of my second semester art classes and regressed to being an undecided major, I sat down with a 24"x36" canvas and a photograph of a church I took in Greece. I stayed up until I was completely finished with the painting, and at 4am I realized that I didn't need to turn my passion into my job for me to truly love it. I didn't need a grade to tell me that I had some form of talent. So here I am on a random summer morning when I should have probably gone back to sleep, about to mix paint for the first time in a while. Every time my mom has people over, she points out the painting above the fireplace and tells people about how I painted it for her. She doesn't mention the first D I ever received, or all of the projects I keep hidden in the guest bedroom & I don't mention the fact that I lost touch of something I really loved for an entire semester. Love is a funny thing. It has the ability to disguise itself, make you doubt it's not there, but when there's paint loaded up on a brush, I know that the love is there.