What Goes Around Comes Around

For the past month I have been circling the shallow end of the Olympic-sized pool that is Teaching Art. I found myself there by way of invitation, an invitation from a friend who barely knows me, not this me, anyway, and scarcely knows my background in teaching.


I am terrified.


I am also exhilarated in a manner I haven't been in a long, long, long time. It's difficult to wrap my head around and even process the magnitude of this endeavor and what it means for me as a person. I don't consider much for my person. I have several other people I consider on a daily, minute by minute, basis and still end up failing on the regular. Add to that small list eight students and one teacher/founder of a fledgling private academy and we've got a big old heap of shit for me to fuck up. This could be disastrous, I'm afraid. It could also be the clarity, the future, the prospect I have been praying for (or not praying for, more regularly wishing for).


Two classes in and I am finding myself an old and semi-wise mother figure, less so a teacher. Those skills were never honed, unfortunately, I quit far before I should have given up and quite frankly, I'm afraid I'm going to do the exact same thing with far greater consequences this time. Back then, it was only me. I only had myself to blame (and I did/do) and I only had to walk away. Now I have a whole audience watching and waiting for me to take off and I'm puttering along like a jalopy. I'm definitely out of shape.


There is SO much to dig through. There is SO SO SO SO much to relearn and add in and expand upon that I'm almost in it fulltime - something I am only recognizing just at this moment - that if I am to garner anything from this experience, it is going to have to come to me in full throttle, full-on art immersion... something I am completely unprepared for.


Or am I?


Am I not in desperate need of something new? Am I not just drowning in pessimism and self flagellating self martyrdom? YES, I am. SO, when do I wake the fuck up and get on with it already? I need shock treatment.


Begin. Please begin to be today, Betsy. Please wake up and get moving.