Shedding Old Skin

Posted on by Jennifer Sharpe
This is a homeless woman who I see on my bus commutes back and forth on Wilshire. She appeared about a year ago. She is always by herself. Sometimes she has clean things to wear. Often she talks to herself.

So many things have happened within the last 10 years of my life that it feels like 100 have passed instead. After an emotional crisis when I was 41, I started to work in digital photography and film and shared it online. This is addition to having 2 young children and working a full-time job. In the spring of 2010, I was also diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes.

My children are now growing into young adulthood, those challenging teen years. My husband and I are starting to venture out a little more together as a couple now, despite having way less energy (and alcohol tolerance) than merely 10 years ago. I continue to work on a modified work schedule as my disease dictates, and hope very much that a digital archiving project I have been working on collaboratively for 15 years finally takes off with continued improvement within our larger work community. If I can have that satisfaction before I retire, I will feel that I have fulfilled my duty.

It has been difficult, between my health and my family, to really get very far in any kind of deepening career path.   Including my art endeavors. This has been very frustrating for me, because I always want to progress and do new and increasingly challenging things. But there’s only so much a person with my commitments can do without more support. C’est la vie.

At this point, I really think that I will return to blogging regularly again. Perhaps one day I will print this all out as a memorandum of my life since late 2009. Either way, I’m not looking to compete with anyone but just to live my life as myself. In all its complexity. Others’ goals are not for me to consider. I’m in my own situation, and I’m old enough now to know how to keep my blinders on me so I don’t get distracted worrying about others’ life trajectories. Worrying about how my life compares to others’, what I “should” be doing according to others’ dictates, rules, and “how to’s” is well… impossible. I just can’t follow along, so I’ll have to make it up as I go along.

This is an easier decision to contemplate now that I’ve been through the wringer with obstacles this long. I have the courage to do it now. And the confidence as well. Yay.