All This Time

Maybe I'm not cut out for this

Mikaela Arceo had goals, and there was nothing on earth that will keep her from getting them.

Except, maybe this block.

"So, how's it going today?" Therese, her high school best friend and roommate, asked, sliding into the seat across Mika as she unscrewed the cap of her coffee in a bottle. A latte, unlike the cold brew bottles she had been drawing for the past hour. "Is today the day you'll tell me we'll open your website? Post your art on social media?"

This had been their ritual every morning for the past few months: Mika doing her lettering drills or working on a new piece, and Therese asking her if she was ready to go public with them. The two of them have been friends since high school, born from being partners in their Social Studies class report, which led them to go to the same university and finding jobs that happened to be in the same building. Now that Mika was attempting to embark on a new path, Therese had appointed herself as her number one cheerleader, accountability partner, and web person.

"No, not today," Mika said, shaking her head. "I don't have anything."

Therese pointed at her sketchpad. "Well, what's that?"

"It's just doodling," she sighed, pushing the sketchpad across the table to her friend. "I've been trying for the past two hours to create something, but nothing's working."

She watched Therese look at her pad, where she had spent the past two hours drawing random words, crossing them out, writing them again, then crossing them out again, until she finally gave up and started doodling. Now she had a page full of small drawings but nothing for her next piece. Whatever that "next piece" was.

"This isn't nothing," Therese said, giving the pad back to her. "I think these are cute! We could make stickers out of it if you want to go down that route."

But that was the problem. Mika wasn't even sure what route she was taking right now. She had always been into art and drawing since she was a kid but only recently discovered a love for lettering and calligraphy. There was something about making ordinary words look pretty with a few strokes that made her happy. It had always been just a hobby until one of her coworkers hired her to design invitations for an event. Mika realized that she liked doing that, too, and it made her happy when people liked what she made. Earning money had been a big plus, too.

That had been the plan: to make more art, start sharing it, and maybe earn from it. No, not maybe. Really earn from it. She had gone as far as dreaming that she did this for a living. Although she did like her current job as a marketing specialist, she dreamt of having more control and freedom with her time, away from the shifts and the walls of her cubicle.

So, starting late last year, Mika took more concrete steps to achieve her goal. First, enroll in online courses: from figuring out her personal branding to digital marketing to the technicalities of starting a small business. Second, she decided to be more disciplined with her time, blocking out her mornings before work to practice and build up her portfolio.

All of these sounded easy on paper. What no one told Mika was that creativity and inspiration would turn out to be elusive the more she tried to be more intentional about it and how terrifying it was to put your works up for public scrutiny.

"Maybe I'm just not cut out for this," Mika finally said with a sigh. "If it was just being blocked, maybe I can manage it, but putting myself out there still terrifies me, Therese."

"You're only afraid because you're blocked, and you're blocked because you're afraid. We need to get you out of that cycle." Therese snapped her fingers. "You need a break. Talk to me about something else other than your art."