FRAGMENTED

I could not explain the imagery of this post if I even tried. I started this over a week ago and was planning to finish it a few days later… however, I was then offered a job out of nowhere and everything I had planned was postponed.

The other day (Friday) at work, I had this moment, sitting there, staring at the monitor – someone had just told me I did a “really good job” with the work I had created. My eyes were suddenly full of tears but I’m still not crying so it was easy enough to compose myself. If anything, it was a little more difficult to do so this time, as they were tears of happiness… or perhaps, tears, due to a sense of accomplishment, rather than sadness.

Some people strongly believe that if one works hard enough, one will achieve whatever one wants to achieve. I disagree with this notion. I have always felt that those who reach their goals are blessed with a little bit of luck.

The job I was offered is one I have been aspiring to for an entire decade now. Being officially employed as a graphic designer is quite the emotional moment for me.

That night, as I walked to the train station after work, I caught a glimpse of my reflection and I felt so lucky.

I’m not cool, or super pretty, or super smart or super interesting… or super anything, BUT, the chances of me being who I am were so low. I wasn’t supposed to be who I am, I had to fight to be who I am – I had to fight hard.

When I was younger, my first proper goal was to be a singer – no joke! I wanted to be a famous performer SO badly. I think I was about eight or nine at the time. I used to write lyrics in one of my school exercise books and practice singing them at home. I even tried to compose the music on a piano when I was in grade 6 during music class – even though I knew NOTHING about music (and sadly still don’t).

I think I let that dream fade away when I got to the age of 12 and realised an awkward loser like myself was realistically never going to be successful in an industry that appeared to be so shallow, at least that’s what I believed at the time.

It is around this time that I was also having an exceptionally terrible time with my existence.

I was basically a loner and the internet became my escape from the atrocity that was my reality. This is when I first began experimenting with graphics, initially as a need to create images to support the websites I was creating to practice HTML. (Hello nerd) It didn’t take very long for me to enjoy creating images more than coding, and eventually I realised it was something I could potentially pursuit as a career.

My aspirations of being a graphic designer had nothing to do with school, (at school I actually sucked at Art and I was a lot better at Maths, Science, English… and basically everything else other than Art class and… P.E) it was something that developed over time during the many moments I spent distracting myself at home.

When you experience enough unfortunate events during your life, eventually, you begin to stop expecting that anything good will ever happen. I never stopped practicing digital visual art – never. However, I stopped expecting to ever gain full time work as a designer. If it happened – great, I thought, but I had completely given up any hope of it actually occurring.

Two weeks ago, just like that, it happened; I was offered a job. I wasn’t even actively applying for jobs at the time, I was in the process of fixing my folio so I could attack the job application process again with full force. That, was just luck. I got so lucky and I can not explain how strange the feeling is.

I know, that in a general sense, it’s not really an accomplishment, but it is for me. I have come a very, very long way since I was that loser 13 year old and I’m so pleased that I didn’t let myself down. There were so many times that I was pressured to completely give up on design, to not even blog, to cease all forms of practice. Now, it feels like all the work, dedication and the countless hours spent on photoshop were worth it.

Going to your day job and practicing something you love is an amazing feeling. It is even more amazing and somewhat surreal when that love is something that basically saved your life when you had nothing else to live for.

I feel like this post is written more poorly than usual. I am awake way past my bed time and I feel quite delirious right now, I apologise.

I feel like I’m finally at the beginning of the good part of my life. It’s a pretty unique and awesome feeling. So, uh, yes. Things seem to be going decently for a change. The only problem I have is with people.

You know when you *like* someone and you know that nothing is ever going to happen? You’ve accepted it and you can deal with it, but as much as you try, the desire lingers and fails to exit your brain. It’s highly irritating. If anyone knows of how I can access the emotional ‘off’ switch in my head, please do tell.

Ah, I need to crash.

Maybe I’ll try to actually make a fashion related post next time. We’ll see