I quit my job to become an artist.

Lately, I've been feeling like I'm in between versions of myself. Like I am not quite who I used to be, but I'm also not sure where life is taking me either.

There's been a lump in my throat and a flutter in my belly, and the anxiety has been just really consuming.

Somewhere along the way, I hustled a little too hard. And I could feel the machine sucking bits and pieces away from me. And they were just slipping off into the unknown. And I realized that I had lost my spark. Not just my creative spark, but my spark for life.

One day, I realized all of my little walks and self-care practices, my routines, everything that I had put in place to help me, just weren't cutting it anymore.

I needed a total overhaul.

If I'm being honest, this shift isn't coming from a place of confidence and excitement, and it's like, oh, I'm taking a big leap. It's coming from a place of survival. Like, this cannot be this life. There's more to this life than what I'm living right now.

So, I quit my job to be an artist. And I know, I know what you're thinking. In this economy.

How are you going to make ends meet? I haven't even seen you post art in so long.

I know, I have thought about all of those questions and more, but what I have to come back to and remind myself is that no one knows what it's like to be me. No one knows what I'm going through. And what I have to deal with, and they don't have to live with the outcome of this choice.

I'm not doing this because I know what's next. I'm doing it because I don't. I am thrilled by the idea that I can feel alive again, that I can feel my spark again. And honestly, just simply, that has to count for something.

I'm going to document this artist's journey every step of the way. It's going to be messy and cringey and cool and beautiful and all of the things in between. And it's just so thrilling. I know it's not going to be perfect, and I'm not even going to try to be honest. I want to try to be the opposite of perfection.

I have had a long-standing issue with perfection, which has led me to where I'm at today, because I just want to be the best, and I wanted to be the best in art. I wanted to be the best in my career. I wanted to be the best or that's what my perfection wanted. But truly, whenever I thought about it, if I thought, oh, at the end of this life, what kind of legacy do I want to leave?

It wasn't that I would be the best. I wanted to be known for being me. I wanted to be. I want to be known for being somebody who is so fun to be around. And so sorry. One moment.

When I think about the legacy that I want to leave. It's not to be the best at what I've done. I want people to remember me as somebody, okay? I'm not going to be able to get through this without crying. I want to be known as somebody who is there for you. Whenever I could be in whatever capacity that I could.

I want to be known as somebody who invited you to the table. I want to be known as somebody who loved unconditionally the people that matter most to me. I want to be known as somebody who didn't follow arbitrary rules just because society told me so. I want to be known as somebody who is so thoughtful and caring…

None of those things are “the best🌟.” The star student, the employee of the year…

And I'm killing myself with stress because that's what I was trying to be. And it was really hard. And I, I couldn't do that anymore. And so, yes, this sounds so fun and exciting that I'm quitting my job to be an artist, but I'm quitting my job to heal.

It's not about this new YouTube channel and this personal brand and all of that. It's become. It's about becoming who I want to be. To. To my fullest potential. And the reason why I want to share it is because I know that I have an impact on this world. I have always shared very openly with people about things that I'm going through, things that I'm learning, things that I'm experiencing.

But years later, I've shared little bits of myself with people, even if it's in a personal, private way, they have come back to me and they said, hey, I just learned this thing about myself. And you told me a couple of years ago that you experienced something similar.

Do you have any tips? And oh my gosh, that feeling is so. It feels so good to know that I could be somebody's touchpoint.

I have a favor to ask you throughout this journey. I'm going to be sharing it all. The messy, the fun, the creative, the weird, the cringing. I want to explore all these new things and

I would love your encouragement.

You don't have to become my biggest fan and watch all of my videos and like,

I'm not so good at speaking up because I'm a little afraid of rejection. And so sometimes I just try to be the strong one. So I would love your encouragement throughout this journey. Even if you don't care about the art side of things, or if you don't watch all of this stuff, that's not what I'm asking. I just want,

for if you think of me or you see something, or I'm out and about and I do something that makes you smile, can you please just let me know?

So what is this going to look like? I, I don't fully know yet, but I would love to host creative classes (virtual and in person) about, like, expressing yourself, about creativity, about overcoming burnout, things like that.

I'm also exploring all kinds of different things that I've never done before. Like, I would love to learn how to create immersive of our experiences.

I don't really have experience in that. But if you know of an opportunity, count me in. I am down. That's never stopped me. Anyway.

I don't look at challenges and say, “Sorry, I don't have experience.” I’m excited to learn something new.

If you see an opportunity and you don't know if I would be interested in it, just send it my way. What I would say. Because who knows? I am being open-minded.

Also, I have to say, don't worry about me. I know that I said that I had been losing my spark for life, and that could cause some concern. But don't worry, I have so much support from my loved ones and my therapist and things like that. So, of course, thank you so much. If it caused any concern, but I am taking care of that aspect as well.

We only have this one beautiful way too short life. And the world isn't going to stop for you to recover.

Your body, your mind, your soul. It's all irreplaceable. And we have to choose ourselves in as many ways as we can, because no one else is going to choose us. And there's already so much in this world that we can't control. So we have to take charge and take care of what we can control.

This is me showing up as the artist I've always wanted to be since I was four years old. Putting myself first, putting my creativity first. I've done art ever since I was young. And I always made it my side hustle. I made it this thing that I do after hours, and the reality is by doing that, I was putting my all into everybody else's dream.

I was bringing everybody else's dreams to life because I was good at what I did. But I wasn't leaving enough energy for myself at the end of the day, to the point where I just got really burnt out.

As I go out on this journey, I'm so excited to try all these new things. I am working with new mediums that I have never done. I've had experience with doing acrylic and watercolor, digital illustration, and things like that. But I want to explore mediums that I've never done.

I want to learn how to do things that seem kind of out of my wheelhouse.

I want to do like 3D, like sculptures, papier maché, more cool collage work, maybe mixed media stuff that doesn't even really fit into a genre I don't want to niche down. I want to experience the art of creating for the sake of creating, and less for being good. Because that is one thing that I struggle with.

It's like, I just want to be good at whatever. But the thing is, that's not what art is about. It's not about being good. It's about expressing yourself. It's about exploring ideas. It's about.

Getting what's in your mind out into this physical world. And it can be so beautiful. And so I'm not going to niche down into a certain medium. I'm going to explore them all and see what sticks. And I'm not going to box myself in if something sticks for a couple of years, and then maybe it doesn't anymore, cause that's okay.

I am creating the life that I always wished somebody would give me. No one's going to give that to me, because at the end of the day, this world wasn't built for me. It wasn't built for my brain in the way that I think and the way that I want things to be. It just wasn't built like that in it.

I have to create that for myself. And so that's what I'm doing. If you resonate with that and you are thinking about being creative and you don't know how to do that, I'm not trying to encourage anybody to quit their job

to pursue their passion and art. What I would encourage you to do, though, is even if you don't feel like you’re creative, the first step is to just get something out there, get something, get some color on a page!

Start writing stuff. You can make things good later. Just get it out. So that's what I will leave you with. Stay curious and remember that the unknown is quite thrilling.

xx Love, Luna