First of all, I’d like to address the elephant in the room: Mr. Babar, I thoroughly enjoyed your book series as a child; a bright green suit is a gamble, but the dice landed favorably in your case. With that out of the way, I am not Paul. My name is Spoon, and I’ll be your guest blogger today.
I became an artist shortly after having crayons and a cheap spiral notebook foisted upon me by my parents, sometime between the cesarean section and learning to use the toilet confidently, accurately, and alone (later than you might think). The transformation was instant; a toddler one moment, a being of hyper-condensed creative energy the next. My destiny was set, and I couldn’t even tie my shoes (again, with the late milestones).
I’ve noticed a recurring theme throughout my life, that being the fact that nothing ever seems to work out the way I envision it will. No one has ever accused me of being an optimist, but then again, I’ve never been arrested for public pessimism, either. Yet. I just seem to have an active imagination, and reality itself often has trouble keeping up with the program. MY program.
By the time I was in high school, I had my life figured out. The combined wisdom and experience of a seventeen-year-old boy truly has no parallel. I was going to marry my high school crush (or the version of her in my mind that had no faults and the personality of a particularly kind loaf of bread), move into a high-rise penthouse in Nashville, become independently wealthy as a chemist, then scrap my day job to work as a comic book artist. I was also quite committed to the idea of fighting crime as a superhero, wearing only the dark cloak of night and a pair of black and green tights. This was how my life was going to be, and if there is one prerequisite to success, it’s having rigid, unrealistic expectations. That box was checked, boldly so, in saucy red ink.
At least once, you have felt a dull sense of disappointment from things not coming together, even though only minimal effort and planning were poured into the project. I spent a few good years wallowing in this, assuming success was a magnet and I had buns of steel. Why wasn’t my ethereal vision coalescing into tangible reality when I was DAYDREAMING SO HARD about it? The constant drip of time shifted and sifted my priorities; things I obsessed over drifted out of focus and into nonexistence. The idealized self I held in my mind morphed along with me, partially due to wisdom gained from running face-first into the steely structure of reality but in large part to the distraction of developing new interests and other bombastic desires, racking up a bucket list that would make a card-carrying polymath blush. If sprinting in one direction was good, surely sprinting in sixteen directions at once was better.
Over time the realization set in that one or two actual lifetime achievements would be better than a mile-high heap of hypotheticals. A ham sandwich tastes better than a picture of filet mignon. I needed to refine my scope, so I chose two little nuggets out of my bucket. My life’s work would be to polish these beauties to a radiant luster. Anything else was just a bonus. Or a distraction. My overarching story was now chiefly about earning my living as an illustrator and a voice actor. I began to do my research, to begin to know just how much I didn’t know, and to lay out and take the necessary steps toward directed action.
With action comes the opportunity for failure! Luckily, my first instinct after failing is to pick myself up, dust myself off, and curl up in a corner to lament the wasted time and effort. And eventually try again. When I say “failure,” I don’t mean anything catastrophic. I’ve never lost a limb from doing a poor sketch or caused a hurricane by being passed over in an audition. Yet. But, I have definitely made plans to draw a beautifully inked full page of art on 11”x17” Bristol board only to stare at that white slab for hours and then break for coffee and weeping. Auditions have slipped in and out of my field of view because I put it off for fifteen minutes over and over in favor of such important tasks as shuffling about the house and checking to see if YouTube still exists. That’s okay; not every day is a productive powerhouse. I’ve got the rest of my life to make it.
My dad died last year. He was 56. Not so old. I wonder how many unexpected turns his life took along the way. How far was he from his ideal? How many of his goals shifted or twisted into something unrecognizable through the years? I would often have pangs of realization that I’d lose my parents one day, and I’d always comfort myself with how many decades away that would be. I always assumed my father would be the greatest grandpa on historical record. My kids will never meet him. If anything, I’ve learned from this that there are points of no return. Sometimes you can’t backtrack to reach a destination. You missed the chance.
Circumstances can change with the subtlety of revving a chainsaw in a library. My sweet li’l fiancée and I are soon to be wed, and with that comes new shared goals and a fresh plate of possibilities, probably soon new mouths to feed and bottoms to diaper. I’m excited. But I’m also coming to terms with the new paradigm. My new responsibilities as a husband and father will take priority. The feeling of needing to achieve ASAP instilled by my dad’s death is at odds with the reduced pace I expect from starting a family of my own.
So, where does all the overwhelming success come into the story? Am I a full-time artist? Have I made voice acting my bread and butter? Actually, I’m still working on it. I don’t have everything figured out, and I wouldn’t be shocked to learn that the goalpost will make a series of huge leaps before I’m done. But I see my progress, treating each day as a miniature trek in the direction of my quietly, boisterously, imperceptibly, violently changing ideal in life. Finally, as an adult, I’ve learned to take baby steps, to keep taking them consistently. And maybe someday I’ll end up where I think I’m headed.
This isn’t a happy ending. It’s not an ending at all, just a pause until my next lesson learned. Maybe you could hasten that along in the comments. You seem like you know what you’re doing!
Spoon, thank you for giving me a chance to get to know you better. I think Paul has been blessed to have you as a friend. your honesty and humor are a wonderful combination.