So where do you even start when creating a blog for the first time? I’m sat in my living room at 03:52am watching reruns of The Real Housewives of Atlanta, questioning my life and feeling the urge to create a site where I can divulge in my secret love for writing whilst letting you guys into the day-to-day life of a “starving artist.” Let’s see if this is worth anyone’s time. I guess it’ll be a process of discovery for all of us…
I’ll introduce myself. I’m Claire, I’m 25 and I’m from a small town in Wiltshire, England. Coming to the realisation at the age of 18, sat at a computer in the school IT room, trying to scramble together some kind of an excuse for a university application, that I had, in fact, no interest in going to university I made a trip downstairs to visit the vocation oracle and despite the flawless service supplied by our schools career advisor, I also lacked any interest in following any of their suggestions of future prospects… the mechanic life just wasn’t calling for me, nor was the idea of becoming a plumber. So, I’m 18 and being told I need to make a decision on what I want to do for the rest of my life, immediately. I flew under the radar for the rest of my time at school, when I realised I had no clue as to what I wanted to do with my life, which actually came fairly easily to me as a lot of teachers chose to focus their attention on the students who were due to attend university. Trust me, this isn’t a plead for pity. At the time this was happening I was happy to have nobody questioning my intentions, because what do you say when you don’t have an answer? “Oh yeah, well, um, plumbing’s on the cards…” hardly convincing when it’s coming from someone who laughs at the mere mention of a U-bend. When was it going to be an appropriate time to admit my secret to my friends, family and teacher? The secret fact that my idea of a heavenly future would be to hide away in an art studio day in, day out, creating new things every day and shutting myself off from the world? To be able to make a living by expressing myself through art? To have people take me seriously when I can’t even pluck up the bravery to go to university? My response to this existential crisis? spend the next 5 years working in pubs, shops and care homes. If you have a keen eye for detail, you might have noticed the plural nature when describing my previous places of work… my indecisiveness paired with anxiety and the constant urge to throw caution to the wind and take up art full time resulted in me having a lot of jobs, all for varied lengths of time. Sometimes 2.5 years, sometimes 6 months. Whilst working at a local pub, the workload was overwhelming to me and my mindset was not right. I was having daily panic attacks, I was physically exhausted and my mental health was effecting me every day. I knew something had to change. I sat down with my other half and we had a serious discussion about the logistics of me quitting my job and focusing on nurturing my mental health. Now it’s 2 years later, I’ve been self employed as a creative since I left the pub job and my mental health has improved immensely. Income from this endeavour has been everything from unpredictable, daunting, exciting and scarce but I thank the stars every day that I am fortunate enough to be in a position where I am able to pursue my dream, full time.
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