At the beginning of this year, I was having a bit of an existential crisis. I had quit my in-house design job to focus full time on my freelance career at the end of October. I went on a magical adventure to Paris the week right after, then came back and jumped into show season (with DesignerCon, CTNX, and Renegade Craft Fair all within four weeks), got hired onto an exciting freelance project that committed me into the new year, and then the dust settled in January.
The dust settling was welcome, and I've been fortunate that the freelance jobs have been steadily coming; but the unstructured, amorphous shape of my future was stunning. Stunning in a catatonic way – it was the first time in my entire life that I haven't been scheduled to the gills. I left my job for a myriad of reasons, but the most outstanding one being that my freelance work was growing to a point where it could sustain my life, and my schedule of doing both was growing to a point that was going to kill me.
So back to January. I was having lunch with my friend Eileen, and we were both at the beginning of starting something new. We were both kind of scared, really excited, and already exhausted at the ideas of our individual businesses. I shared a quote I had read somewhere (still can't hunt down a real origin, so let me know if you know): the grass is greenest where you water it. From that moment, it was my mantra for 2015.
It's been paying off in ways I can't wait to share, but I also lettered this piece throughout the last couple months – in the moments I found it hardest to believe in this quote. But it always turned me back around, helped me focus on the right things instead of dwelling on the negative. Hopefully it can do the same for you. You can find the print in my shop if you'd like to make it part of your life.
