This beautiful new light is blinding me. I’m asking myself, how can I feel comfortable in the light when all I have ever known is darkness?

[photo found on tumblr]

“If someone
wanted to own you,
the first thing they would do
is establish the illusion
that they are keeping you
safe.”

/Ron Willis

[photo found on tumblr]

Spending my days with making plans and goals for my future.

[photo found on tumblr]

Right now, I’m spending all my time preparing to move into my own place, in a little more than a month from now. I feel extremely restless. I have been without my things, my furniture, my art supply and my freedom for almost a year now – and the little time left feels unbelievably frustrating since I am so close to reconnect with my things, with my art and my creativity.

I am building a new life for myself, and it’s a slow process, it takes time and a lot of thinking and soul searching to know where I want to go, where I want to be.

I feel like I am new at everything in life now. In love. Art. Sex. Success. Even my mind and soul feels new and fresh. I am enjoying life for the first time without the constant anxiety or the symptoms of my trauma that I’ve left behind. I can breathe without inhaling fear, I can see without the eyes of a victim and I can talk from my core without the defense mechanisms and the shame.

The fear is still there at times, but I’m not a slave to it and I am actively fighting it.

I have changed so much in these last two or three years. I can’t really relate much to the person I was before. So it’s overwhelming at times. The changes. The new. The waiting.

But I will soon have a new place to call home, and from there I will create my dream life. I have so much to look forward to. No wonder I feel so restless right now when I know my freedom is there waiting for me around the corner.

I’m not as active as I used to be on my blog or on Facebook, because I used to live through those channels, to feel seen or heard. Now, I am enjoying life and these virtual places doesn’t mean as much as before. I don’t need the constant validation or the attention from strangers anymore. I provide that to myself now. But once I have my own place and my own studio there, I will create things – art and writing, and show you! I have so much I want to tell you about. And it’s all kept inside of me – in here. Like a restless volcano of creativity, joy and love!

So please be patient, I will be back with so many exciting projects. I just have to get trough this time of the constant waiting for my new life to start.

NEW DIGITAL WORK! “STRINGS ATTACHED” BY MIA MAKILA, 2015 [click to enlarge]

[art by Sarah Andersen]

Someone recently told me that I should redefine what my creativity means to me, and what an artist is, according to me -since I am trying to find my new artistic voice after all the years of the creativity blockages and being all burned out. That way I could start looking for new questions to ask myself instead of trying to find answers to old questions that I’ve never been able to figure out.

I think it was an excellent advice. I need to give my art and my creativity a new meaning – with a new definition.

When I think about how I used to define myself as an artist, I see a lifelong dream, that started when I was 5 years old. I knew that I wanted to be an artist and that I wanted to use my creativity as a focus to get there. As a teenager I used my creativity as a way to express myself and what I was all about. I was bullied in school and felt like a misfit, so my art became my ‘weapon’ that made me feel protected, and I could prove that they were all wrong – I could show them that I really WAS someone, I had something to add to the world, and that I was damn good at it!

Being an artist, or striving to become one, became my identify. I was defined by my dream.

So I worked hard to become an artist. I’m self taught, so I also did it without any guidance. But after I graduated from art school (as an art rebel), and when I was going for my dream of becoming an artist, I was only focused on catching the dream, of the fame and the success of it. So when I finally was acknowledged as an artist by the art world – I had made my dream come true – but I had also lost it. My dream came true, after so much hard work, but at the same time, the dream itself was gone. I had achieved my goal, I was there, I was home.

I had never thought about what I wanted AFTER my dream came true, and I got burned out from all the hard work. I don’t really think I was ever blocked, I think I was so exhausted that I just couldn’t work anymore. I needed the break, but I made resistance, I tried to make art anyway and I felt frustrated and scared. I let my career spiral downwards and I had to decline a lot of propositions from the art world,  I found myself saying “no” instead of “yes” to collaborations, challenges and opportunities, and I felt like a failure, like I had abandoned my dream – and myself.

But looking back at it, I think it was all good. I needed to take a deep breath and stop to see what I was doing, if I was being true to my original dream. And for many years, I mourned what I lost during that time, but now I feel grateful for that (painful) experience. I’ve learned a lot. And now I get to redefine what I want to do with my gift – my creativity and imagination, and how I want to use it now when I am here, at this place that I was only dreaming about as a young girl. It’s time to find a new dream to catch.

A week ago I discovered the TV series “The Killing” on Netflix and I just couldn’t stop watching. I don’t know what it is with the show but it resonates perfectly with me, there’s something about passion for what you do, for what you believe in, for what you are fighting for, something about solitude and loneliness that I can relate to, and also what it’s like to be a misfit, a freak and still feel like that’s what’s normal in the world. I watched 4 seasons in 7 days, that’s how much I loved it.

I feel frustrated. I’m in this new place in life and I have no idea what to do from here. I’ve closed to the door to my past and I’ve changed the skin I live in, I’m not the same person I was just a year ago when I was living in a dead relationship and had lost myself in so many ways, but on my way of breaking free. Now I am free and nothing in my life feels dead. No, on the contrary – every day I have moments when I feel overwhelmed of this new freedom and happiness. But I don’t know how to express it, what to do with it. I am so used to talking about my journey, to this place, but I don’t know what to tell you about it now when I’m finally here. Because it feels intimate, it’s all mine, I worked so hard to get here and it’s a personal victory to finally be here.

I guess I have to get used to this new and wonderful place, and then use it as a foundation for every new artistic expression that comes out of me. I can’t wait. I have so much to look forward to.

Sia released her latest music video this week – it’s the third and last collaboration with the 12 year old dance protegee Maddie Ziegler.

When the heart

Attacks

Every thought

With the 

Warmth

Of your name.