Aging and Reassessing Goals

I’m 30. I know I’m not middle aged yet, but boy, when I compare myself to the vibrant, endlessly energetic person I was in college, I seem old. And I’ve been letting myself see me as older, which feeds into why I probably think I’m a bit old.

I used to have goals, aspirations, focuses, and felt like there was never enough time in the day to all of the things I wanted to accomplish done. Lately I’ve been feeling like I don’t have much I want to get done (although I find my days are quite filled and have little time to work on what matters to me as an artist).

I’m a full time pet parent and keeping these two mini schnauzers happy, healthy, and potty trained is what I’ve been doing with my days. For the last month and a half I’ve been feeling exhausted. I’ve taken a hard look at my sleeping schedule and may have figured out why I can now fall asleep in a room full of my family and puppies playing with loud toys: I’m sleep deprived. At least one of the dogs wants to get up at 5:30 and I get to sleep around 11–12. I love them so much, but I do need a break. They imprinted on me so much that they nearly won’t let anyone else take them outside if I’m around, so I’m left with a lot of heavy schnauzer lifting.

I’m also, hopefully, on the end of a 4 year streak of burn out. I’m finding pleasure in painting things again and hope my streak of recovering some passion from my art is there.

Art has become so digital. Even as I’m here, technically writing, I’m at my laptop and am not touching paper to…