I’ve been dreaming lately of having a therapist, not because I don’t have enough people in my life to talk to, but because it seems that the only way someone should have to listen to all the minutiae of my life is by being paid for it. An hour a week where I can talk endlessly about myself. Now that we have all this health coverage I might look into it, but in the meantime I shall try and write a little more regularly, in spite of being torn about how much of it I should put online. Given that there is a link to here from my portfolio site, should I be discreet about what I write? Remove the link? Assume that potential employers would skip looking at it? Remind myself that I’m just one in a sea of a million blogs and therefore the amount of people actually reading this are very, very small?

Its a long way away from my handmade journals and fountain pen that I used to use, but journal keeping now is hampered by lack of time. I have a lot of thoughts about being a “grownup” or what I consider finally, my adult life. Mostly it has to do with concerns about being an adult. Or ways that I think I’ve changed now that I’m an adult. Or ways that I thought I would be but disappointingly am not since becoming an adult, all which weigh heavier on me than the crushes and career hopes of my 20s. Actually, I just realized that career hopes is still a big one, it just doesn’t involve being a musician anymore. I suppose some things really do remain the same, because now I’m entertaining career hopes as an illustrator, although I feel a little more powerless in how to go about making it happen.

The last two nights I’ve been lying in bed worrying about my “career” (as it seems to be my most occupying concern) – mostly that, after you have found the person you want to spend your life with, and you have two wonderful children (still young enough to need you and love you unconditionally), what else is there? Work. At least I think that’s all there is, so it has to be meaningful, and I have to want to do it, and feel good about doing it, which certainly rules out the web and graphic design I’ve been doing. But I’m starting to think maybe success is eluding me. Sure, there have been some successes – I’ve done two (1 1/4) picture books and I’ve just signed on with an agent. I really don’t want to look for a design job while I wait for the next illustration job (although responsibilities dicate that I should), so I suppose all my middle of the night crises can be pinpointed back to that. At least with music there were always gigs – with illustration I feel like there is an awful lot of waiting around – if only I had the cash to send out postcards every 2 months and buy up all the portfolio space online.