Confession Time

Hello Cyberfriends,

It’s time to get vulnerable. Uncomfortable. It’s time to get real.

My real biggest hurdle is myself. I know, I know. You’re sitting there thinking, “Really Ardent? I come here for tech stuff and cute stories about Baby Goblin, I don’t need a self help novel.” Which is fine, because that’s my normal content. Today, we’re not talking about a motivational self-help, kick in the butt kind of day. Today, we’re going to take a second to sit with our feelings.

If you’ve been reading a long thus far, you know I’ve alluded to feeling insecure about my skills and questioning if I really have what it takes to make it. I look at the content I’ve created and feel it’s just not good enough. I look at my doodles and get frustrated that I can’t somehow translate things from my imagination or memory into a tangible image that doesn’t look like something drawn by a second grader. I look at my other hobbies like sewing and bread baking and realize that average would be a generous descriptor of my endeavors. It’s hard to let go of a deep seeded need for perfection, and not find ways to knit pick my own work until I feel about as tall as a beetle.

Most days, I can tell that little angry goblin to go away. Most days, I can look at what I’ve accomplished thus far and be proud of it. Days like today are not one of those days. Motivation is scarce, confidence is nonexistent, and my drive to be the goblin I want to be slides off a cliff.

The reality is that days like today are more frequent than I care to admit. It’s hard to not just lie down and give up. I know dear friends that to you this has been a short journey, but I’ve been on this path for well over a year before I decided to begin to document it by shouting into the void of the internet. In previous posts, I talked about time not being on my side and that’s slowly resolving. That little angry goblin in the back of my mind is frustrated that I have nothing to show for what I’ve learned. I don’t have a grand prolific portfolio like I had pictured myself having a year after starting. I don’t have beautiful artwork to present to the world, and I don’t have amazing homemade quilts to snuggle up with Baby Goblin under. What it feels like I have is piles of broken dreams.

That being said, days like today are not every day. While yes, they are more frequent than I care to admit, they are slowly becoming fewer and farther between. I do think it’s important to sit with those feelings sometimes and let myself feel that way for bit before I pick myself up and remind myself that while yes, I do have personal deadlines and I would very much like to build this dream, it’s not a matter of how fast I do it. It’s how many times I choose to get up, shake off the insecurity, and keep going.

If you’ve read this far, thank you. Thank you to all my readers for your continual support. It reminds me that there are people who believe in me when I have a hard time believing in myself. At the end of days like today, that makes a huge difference. Together, we will watch our wildest dreams come true.