Almost One Year Self Employed

And myself, Eden, for twenty two years.

Am I who I who I thought I would be as a child? Yes, but even more so.

This baby Eden has so much ahead of her. Beautiful, and awful, and hard, and sweet. My second niece was just born, and she has me thinking of everything that she will experience too.

As a child, and then as a teenager, I was weird. Obsessive. Creative. Stubborn, and mostly, determined to be someone. I told myself probably every day that I was going to be someone. Someone with a life they loved. Someone who did not settle for less than I knew I was capable of achieving.

It’s easier in high school to reach goals already laid out for us. Good grades, a dance or music recital performance. The end and beginning of it all at graduation. Somewhere in adulthood the valuable accomplishments turn into numbers and a daily grind.

Where do the big dreams that make you excited to be alive go?

The biggest goal I set for myself as a teenager was to publish a poetry collection. And I did, twice, by seventeen. One through a small publishing firm and one self published. I don’t think there was ever a time I doubted I would do that. I had so much to say and I couldn’t keep it to myself.

There is a third poetry book that I have lost the courage to say out loud at 22.

My first niece still has the confidence of no self doubt. No insecurity. No failures. I never want her to lose that, and I want to find it again for myself.

I want to feel as I did at seventeen again. When there is nothing to lose there is no fear of failure.

The past year I’ve been the most content I’ve ever been in my life, yet it’s been harder in different ways than when I was working two jobs and chasing a dream.

Restlessness has plagued me and pushed me to everything I now have. I’m honestly not sure who the someone is that I will be at twenty three, twenty five, or thirty. But she will amaze me. I’m sure.

I’m still determined to see the world. I’m still determined to keep being my own boss and making art, meeting people who love life like I did and do.

I have to keep holding that belief of being capable, and enough, and more than enough close to my chest.

In the words of Stephen Chbosky, we are infinite.

XX, Eden.