Mel’s Monday Musings: December 7, 2020

I’ve been a creative person all my life, but it’s only been in the past few years that things have really started taking off for me in multiple directions career-wise. There are many people who got their big break later in life than I have; no complaints here! But it does make a person stop and reflect on a few things, and this quote seemed appropriate.

“If I am worth anything later, I am worth something now. For wheat is wheat, even if people think it is a grass in the beginning.” –Vincent van Gogh

Over the years, there have been a select few people who saw glimpses of what I was trying to bring forth. There have been many more who didn’t, who told me I was wasting my time or who even insinuated in more than one case that I was hurting my family by not going out and getting a real job. I had all of these thoughts too; impostor syndrome looms large for us creative folks. We live in a world that constantly devalues the arts. But dammit, I had a dream.

Van Gogh knew a thing or two about not being taken seriously and not being valued as he should’ve been. Those lines feel like they apply to so much more than a career in the arts, too. If it takes success for people in your life to be interested in you, those are not your people.

Hold on to the people who saw you for your truest self even when you were in the “just some random grass” stage, long before there was reason to anticipate a harvest. Seek friends who can look past the noise and recognize how awesome you are. And oh, my dear ones, please, please hold out for a love that sees you truly. That person is out there. Someone will look at all of you — your dreams, your scars, your face, your heart — and say, “Yes, this. Yes, you.” Don’t settle for a mediocre love, one that looks away from certain parts of you (and vice versa) instead of reveling in your perfect imperfection.

This world is full of people who will see your true worth, whether you’ve found them yet or not. Don’t give up. You are valuable all the time, exactly as you are. You deserve people in your life who make you feel your own worth, who make you feel like you belong. You do belong. We all do.