forgiveness

The past few weeks have been an exercise in the act of self-forgiveness. Forgiveness for not getting to everything I want to accomplish, forgiveness for giving less time to each part in order to accomplish the greater whole, forgiveness for failing with my interactions with people in moments, and forgiveness for not being perfect.

In the Meyers-Briggs test, it is suggested that I value justice over fairness. I've come to feel this is true. I've had to make some tough decisions about other people's lives over the past few weeks, and some of those decisions were absolutely not fair. I believe, however, that they were just and served the greater purpose. If you had told me that I would become an administrator in graduate medical education, I would have laughed. But like so many parts of my life over the past decade, what I now find myself doing for money is something that I found my way into and something that I've found I'm both good at and enjoy.

It's not a job where you get to be people's friend, and that is personally very difficult at times. Yet it is something that makes a difference, and something that potentially changes the world around me, and that's rewarding.

It is generally at this point in the winter where I become incredibly depressed from not being able to work. I am fighting this and finally began work on my entry to a traveling exhibition. In playing around with different ideas this weekend, I felt so excited, and discovered some new perspectives which I plan to bring back into my painting. This entry is photography, something I enjoy personally but have never considered pursuing as an artist. The piece is post card size, but I plan to make a large print (possibly a limited run of them) if it comes out well.

I'll elaborate more when it's done.

I have to remind myself that time away from the studio is also part of working; it is, in its own way, part of the process.