This is how I feel. Something is in the air. A storm is brewing -yes, mostly in my head. Most of my life is basically all happening in my head. I don't know how it is for other people. But this is how it is for me: Battle lines are being drawn. The Jedi of Creativity are about to face the Dark Side of Overwork. The Shadowside that tells me nobody is interested in my work, my writing, my photos, my ideas or plans is looming up, threatening to distroy what it hasn't chisled away over the years. Born in the dreary, fatalistic halls of Catholic school and fed on Media images of The Perfect Woman who has it all / does it all / is everything to everybody yet true to herself, it has lurked deep in my subconcious mind. It's caused me to throw notebooks full of drawings and writing into the fire to keep me from "wasting time" ( not cleaning the house). It's how addresses to editors get lost and photos for the gallery show wind up under the seat of my car.
Eeep! What garbage. Something has to give. It's time to go to war. It's time for the forces of milk chocolate to do battle with the forces of dark, unsweetened chocolate. This ShadowSide, whatever it is, has got to go. I've got to get rid of it.

Somewhere there are customers who need the kind of help I can offer them through AATH. If I don't offer the service and let them know I'm here then they won't be served. If I don't charge enough to cover my expenses then I'll go out of business and nobody will be helped. Through my Avon business, I can eventually help other women figure out what Avon is helping me figure out: You have to be your own best self promoter. You can't go around with a home done hair cut for six months the way I have, being too cheap to part with $12.50 at the Hair Cuttery. You have to look at yourself and see a valuable asset. While you're looking at the end of your own arm for a helping hand ( that's the first place I was taught to look) you might want to think about putting on some nail polish - if nail polish is something that you like and makes you feel prettier, more feminine, more cared for....

It can no longer be what everybody else wants first and what I hope to accomplish later. Later isn't going to come. It is later. My 20 year high school reunion is coming up. 20!! And yes, it's great that I haven't let depression and ill health distroy my life. I know, probably better then 98% of the population, that sucess is NOT what you have accomplished but what you have had to overcome to get where you are.

But here's the rub. Here's the problem I've always had: what would be wrong with sucess that not only I can see, but sucess EVERYONE could see? In the form of published works, or framed prints, or sucess in business that does not involve regular intervals of rolling the pennies out of the teapot/bank? I know I identify with the underdog. I know that, given the choice, I'll sit down with the humble before I sit down with the haughty. If I do well by doing good does that negate the good that I would be doing through AATH?

What is giving The Shadow Side so much power? The power to keep me from quoting a reasonable rate? The power to distract me from my writing through cassaroles and cobwebs? Where did this thing come from? Not from my mother, who taught me everything I have in my arsenal to fight it. It's like something that came in through a back door, through the floor boards, seeping in and growing somewhere like the mold that sets off my asthma. Where does it live? Where, inside of me, does it hide? I'll attack it if I see it reflected in other people ( i.e. The Hub) but why can't I attack it within myself?

Is it work-aholism? Is it "fear of failure"? "Fear of sucess?" Just plain old fear itself? Where the hell is FDR when we need him! Jeepers!

Those photos are not going to stay under the car seat. That phone call from a potential customer is getting returned. Rick is going to get an envelope full of stuff to try to find literary homes for - since he offered. People don't get opportunities like these every day. Supportive friends like Rick and the Guild members, seminars and workshops to attend....opportunities don't grow on trees. After I work for them, or when they're offered to me, I have to TAKE them. Not say, "oh, jeeze, I'm too busy stuffing groceries in bags for $6.50 an hour to do that." Somebody sent me an e-mail that said, "God doesn't call the qualified, he qualifies the called". Am I not going to answer even Him because I'm afraid? Surely, my faith is strong enough....surely he has provided everything The Hub and I need and even some of the things we want.

The Shadow Side must be made to reveal its true form so I can engage it in battle, root it out, make sure that in nothing that I say or do can I spread it to any other person, especially another woman. My sword is out, my shield is up. Come on, Shadow Side, Smoke Dragon, Thing-in-My-Nightmares-of-Raging-Waters....come on out and fight like man, or a woman, or an animal. I'm ready to engage you on any level. I've got to be: this is a battle for hearts and minds..and for my own soul.