This was my day on Twitter:
(cc) 2008 Christine Taylor — This cartoon is released under a Creative Commons License. You’re free to share this cartoon or post it on your site–just please link to mousewords.net and credit me for it. 
Credit for the original Fail Whale illustration goes to: @yiyinglu of www.whatisfailwhale.info. Check out her site!
I’ve had a lot going on in my life, thoughts, and goals just over the past couple of weeks. Not much would show on the surface—but between my ears and behind my eyes, the world is a different place. Maybe because I’m different inside. I know it’s been building for some months now—like the Lord is putting together the puzzle pieces of my life, one day at a time.
This is something I’ve been hoping for, aiming towards, for most of my life. I had an epiphany at age 17, suddenly knew what I wanted to do with my career and life, and started working towards that. A few years (ahem, be polite, don’t run over to my About page) and several setbacks later, I had not progressed very far past those goals. Make that “visibly.” Between the ears and behind the eyes, the world was quite different. But looking at my life from the outside, at a casual glance, not much of that showed through.
For the majority of my young adult years, I lived most of my life inside my head, between my ears, and within a few walls. I was a homeschooled highschooler (personal choice). When I graduated, I was tested at a college level, so I chose to postpone college and dive into the dreams I couldn’t wait to dig at. I spent the next four years living at home with my family, attending business seminars, reading voraciously, and pursuing an advanced art education through studying others’ works and writings. In other words, I homeschooled myself through college, after all.
In the meantime, I was writing. Writing fiction novels and graphic novel scripts. I was drawing, drawing like crazy throughout my days. Doing character design for my graphic novel series, studying comic book publishers so I would know the one I wanted to plug it to. I had my sights set on the independents, because keeping my rights was important to me–I wasn’t writing for the present, I was building the foundation of a future. So I could wait a little, sacrificing present income opportunities in order to invest in a bigger future. For that “income,” I started my own Amway business and did freelance artwork, to tide me over while I wrote. How did that go? Well, let me just say I’m grateful my family let me live at home.
Some of my lack of success was caused by the fact that I was incredibly shy and introverted, trying to build a career in very extroverted fields. But I had that dream—I thrived on inspiration, and let it fuel me forward, even when the shyness made it almost painful to do so. As I look back now on the person I was then, I wonder if I could have made it work, despite my weaknesses? But at the time, I didn’t get the chance.
During my teens and early twenties, my family and I spent ten years as caregivers for my grandparents. My grandmother had dementia, and eventually forgot who we were. My grandfather died unexpectedly from a sudden onset of cancer. There were other hard situations we were overcoming as a family then, too. I learned many things, and grew a lot between the ears, behind the eyes, in those years—things that would never show up in my resume or bank account. They delayed my dreams. But they made me stronger, bolder. Partially because, once you’ve been hurt in certain ways, you stop being afraid of certain things. You lose some sense of self-preservation…you kind of don’t care what happens to you. So you get braver, and bolder.
I moved on with my family (my choice, turned down a graphic design job to do it). I looked at life as a new opportunity—I felt set free from the hurts of the past, and felt I could finally begin achieving my goals for the future. But anyone who thinks they can emerge from an emotionally abusive situation and hit the ground running is deluding themselves. It took a month-long bout with pneumonia and a dance with a nervous breakdown to teach me that.
And yet…I came away from those days, and emerged into a patch of brighter light. Suddenly I was free to return to my dream, and I did, with my whole heart. Back to the writing, back to the drawing. Back to the quibbling freelance work to bring in a bit of income while I lived with my patient family, too; but back to filling my days with creativity and excitement, and plans for a big future.
Enter carbon monoxide poisoning.
This was a setback that not only invaded its presence upon my goal plan, and delayed my dreams yet again; this monster literally stripped me of the ability to achieve my dreams. I forgot my stories. I lost my words. My hands forgot their skill and learned a new weakness, a new tremor that would forever mar my drawing. I was one year away from publishing a fiction novel and was beginning to draw the final draft of a graphic novel when I had to stop, and teach myself how to write and draw all over again.
Starting all over, yet again. When obstacles keep blocking your pathway, over and over, and you have to stop, and start, and stop again, you have a tendency to get tired. When you keep falling face-first into the mud, it gets very hard to see the way ahead. Dreams and faith and hope will carry you far, through many hard times…but Discouragement can be a towering monster. It can overshadow everything. When things get so very dark, the light seems to fade away, and you begin to feel that the darkness is all there is, all there ever will be anymore.
Yet the light is still there—the light of dreams, and hope, and faith. It’s just being obscured for the time being. Somehow, someway, you have to climb up out of the mire and walk past that beast of Discouragement. It’s the only way to see light again. Oh, it tries to walk with you, mark my words—does its very best to keep blocking the light. For me, I actually began doubting the dreams I had held for so many years. I began to doubt the worth of what was between my ears, behind my eyes. And that’s a tough situation, because that was all that I had left in me. Without the dreams? To my eyes, if the dreams weren’t real, then I was nothing.
Enter God.
Not that He wasn’t there the whole time. Until I stand before Him at the end of this life, I probably will not understand the whole meaning behind everything that is in my past. I see glimmers, I get a few things; but some of the “whys” escape me. Somehow I’ve managed to cling to faith through it all. But then again I wonder—is it really so hard to cling to One who is gripping you in an embrace that will never let you go? He’s been there with me the whole time. And now, just when I felt like I couldn’t pick my face up out of the mud one more time, and would lie there and drown in darkness…it’s as if He’s saying, “Let’s turn the lights on.”
I can’t explain it. I don’t understand it. Something has changed. Maybe it’s me. Yes, I’ve been working…imagine trying to scale a sheer mountainside by only using your fingernails. Yeah, that’s how I’ve been working the past couple years. So yes, I have all those years of work that must have been building to something. But they never led anywhere, to my thinking.
Until now. Something has changed. Something is different. Between my ears, behind my eyes, it’s been a long journey. It’s been…violating. It doesn’t feel like there’s much of anything left of me inside…just numbness, blankness, tears. Tears that flow easily at times. And fear…the inheritance of so many years of living life in the shadow. Fear that crouches and waits for the merest weakness to show within me…so that it can snatch my new life away from me. And fear upon fear, I am afraid that it has the power to do so.
But then I realize…there are arms around me. Strong, mighty, powerful arms. There is a vengeful love washing over me, shielding me, forgiving me the weaknesses that make me despise myself. Someone is holding me fiercely, saying the He is carrying me on through. Past the mire that threatens to envelop and smother me. Past the dark beast that wants to claim me. Carrying me forward to that beautiful light, which has been there waiting for me all along. He’s taking the emptiness between my ears, behind my eyes, and filling it with glorious things that I never dared to dream of, and can hardly comprehend. The dreams of my future.
And something is telling me that my future, at very long last, is here.
I’m sorry for the long blog post…but I think I’m moving forward on a new journey. And I must have needed to travel light.
The writer Lynn Abbey said, “One of my great passions is the collection of historical trivia.”
Is every writer a researcher? I was home-schooled through High School. I had to struggle to make it through my senior year of history…on time. I would read one blurb about, say, Cardinal Richelieu, and suddenly I’d be off in my own world, crafting a story line inspired by a real-life villain. My history book would be shoved aside, and I’d reach for my handy pad of drawing paper and a pencil. My history lesson for the day wouldn’t get done, but I’d write a few pages of a graphic novel.
It’s the same for me to this day. Even when I’m busy writing a novel, I’m easily distracted when doing research. I have reams of pages and hundreds of computer files filled with little blurbs and minutiae, from every subject under the sun. Each one sparks a fire of imagination in my mind, and sets me thinking away on another planet.
Did you know…
This past spring it was announced that water was detected on planet HD209458b—the first planet outside our solar system to show signs of water
A hyperpolyglot is one who can speak six or more languages fluently
Each file on an NTFS volume is listed as a record in a special file called the Master File Table (MFT)
A fen is a low, flat, swampy land; a bog or marsh
HC Andersen, Cuddle Up, Robbie Burns, Taboo, and Iced Raspberry are all names of roses
“God kveld” is “Good night” in Norwegian
And the infamous Cardinal Richelieu was known as Éminence Rouge, or Red Eminence, from the color of his habit.
I’ve got a million of ‘em.
Literally.
In here there be many tales to tell, says I…
Tide of Tales ACEO
This be me celebration for “Talk Like a Pirate Day”…arrr
They say dead men tell no tales…but live ones be sure to go on about their adventures…
A while ago I created an ACEO to commemorate the home run ball that broke Hank Aaron’s record. Since I wanted to have the artwork ready to go live as soon as the ball sailed into the air, I painted it a day in advance. Knowing that the Giants would be playing a home game, I was hoping that if Barry Bonds did indeed hit the home run, it would clear the walls of the park and come to rest in McCovey Cove—a happening that they call a “Splash Ball.” Being a fairy tale artist, I thought it would be cute if a mermaid was the one who wound up claiming the ball, while humans buzzed around in their boats, searching for it in the background.
Well, Bonds did in fact hit his home run the following day—but it wasn’t a Splash Ball. So I did what I could and entitled my piece, “#756—What If??” It sold to a collector, and everything was hunky dory. Oddly enough, Bonds’ very next homer sailed into McCovey Cove. I thought to myself, perhaps what this mermaid actually has is home run #757.
Well, in the news today, I see that the real home run ball #756 has been purchased by someone who plans to let the public decide the fate of the item. He has an online poll open, with three choices: 1: Brand the ball with an asterisk; 2: Launch it into space; and 3: Donate it to the Hall of Fame.
Bonds’ home run before that, ball #755, also sold to a person who will let the public decide what he should do with it. His poll has two options: 1: Destroy it; or 2: Donate it to the Hall of Fame.
It seems to me that home runs #755 and #756 have a slightly precarious position. The possibility exists that they might disappear off the face of this earth—literally.
Looks like the mermaid just may have caught the most valuable ball.
Now for the question—what would I vote if I voted? I think I’d use the same mindset I have for politics: I believe that the office of the President of the United States deserves respect, regardless of what one’s feelings toward the person in the office may be.
So I’d say send them to Cooperstown, out of respect for the game itself.
The other alternatives, however, may drastically increase the value of my ACEO.
…Thanks, Sky. :)
…And thanks Mom, who has also been asking me, “Where’s Oscar??”
