On Being Unable to JUST START

The Mental Anguish of Indecision (in Myself - Can You Relate?)

As I assume most people are, I am absolutely terrible at taking my own advice. I ALWAYS ALWAYS tell people to JUST START. It doesn’t matter what it looks like, what day it is, but just start.

Open that journal, turn a few pages, and put the proverbial pen(cil) to paper. But here I am, frozen with indecision! There is something I want to do, and I actually want to do it very badly, but, trying to decide WHICH journal to use is … seemingly impossible!

I have gone back and fourth on decisions such as these since moving. Prior to moving, I made an accidental memory/art journal. It started out as a Nature Journal, but then when I drew my Mountain Bluebirds, when I was writing, I wrote positive memories I had of them, rather than the short bits of information on them.

From then on, the next few entries I made, which only totaled 7, I wrote positive memories of some of my animals I had to say goodbye to. The ones that I desperately needed more closure with, and help with mourning the loss of their friendship and presence. I will show you those, perhaps overtime.

Ah right, the point of me sharing that with you was that once we moved, I did want to draw more, I wanted to draw and journal all the things, art journal, etc. But, I was frozen, again with indecision. Perhaps if you have never suffered from anxiety or irrational paths of thinking.. you may not relate, but I will try to explain the best I can.

I was blocked! For some reason, even though this memory journal was prompted by my move, I could not continue the “new chapter” in this journal. I tried, and tried, and even have a sketch in there of Frederiksted from the view of the plane, but have not been able to continue it.

Then, I did not draw for a month! Still frozen from this wall of wanting to continue in the same journal, because my life is a continuation from that journal, yet… being mentally and physically unable to force myself to do so. For some reason it felt really wrong to continue in this journal with my new experiences.

Still, it sits there with only seven entries, and still like, 144 empty pages. I don’t know if I will ever be able to return to it. Perhaps, my brain will return to it, with more memories of the farm. I know it’s been missing it lately. Maybe, it’s just not finished yet.

I have since moved on to another journal, thank goodness, and doing this stopped my art block, and I have been able to draw again, thank goodness. I started up again on January first with the unspoken goal of being creative in some way, everyday!

But… one month in, I am on this indecision art block AGAIN. ALSO again having to do with a journal. There is something about the things within the journal being too… haphazard that I am seriously struggling with! Honestly, I cannot tell you what on earth is going on in my head, but this is a thing that is happening.

So, here is the struggle. I haven’t been writing in my new journal, just drawing you know, my drawings (you can see them all on my FB or Insta), no journaling, except for the rare words, like you see above.

My brain says I am absolutely terrified to ruin the drawings with writing words around them. HOWEVER, this is what I did before, and they were SIMPLY WONDERFUL. I, and many other people enjoyed reading over my thoughts and memories. Though, this was the intended purpose when starting this new journal, to write in it as well. But again, I cannot.

Alright, Adrienne, so? Why not just start another journal?? This actually is what my mind has decided to do but is having issues with having two journals that I will be working out of, possibly three.

What I want to do is Art Journal, draw daily small bits of my life, you know, and write about it, no matter how boring. I have done this in the past, and I loved it. If my things weren’t mostly packed away, and if FB didn’t eat a lot of my old photos, I would share with you an entry, but alas…

BUT ALSO, I want to Nature Journal (we will dive deeper on what this is you know, down the line. Short Version: Nature Journaling is going out in the world, and if possible, doing sketches of things you observe and writing about them, things you notice, things you wonder, things it reminds you of, and more!).

I would absolutely love to put the out-and-about nature journaling and my day-to-day art journal in the same journal, BUT my brain is on the fence. So then, it is on the fence also, of what JOURNAL to pick, as I have like, six or seven B5 journals, and two Traveler size journals… I love painting big, so a B5 would be great, because also, sometimes I can write… A LOT… but then, I don’t want to stress on how much detail I put into the drawings, so having something smaller could be beneficial!

Not to mention that, I am also struggling with having a journal just to practice things in, this is getting to be too much people!! Why must I separate everything?? It doesn’t HAVE to be…

SO, my brain doesn’t know what to do. It does, but it doesn’t want to carry around three journals. These things are not exactly light!

So I sit here, unable to JUST START.

And thus, naturally, I wrote this blog for you instead. Hoping that for some reason someone would feel some comfort of not being alone in the odd way their brain is working. Sometimes, someone, somewhere, may need to hear something like this! I am sure of it.

Thanks for being here, this weight of indecision has been getting heavier and heavier by the day. Writing it out helps the weight become a little lighter (that’s a good #protip if you ever find yourself with a heavy mental weight).

So, tomorrow, with a fresh brain, and fresh eyes, I will pull out my journals. I will look at them, touch them, and hold them. And see if I can FEEL which journal seems right to add in to my art bag to take with me everywhere.

Confession: Totally pulled them out tonight, touched them all, just for that photo above. HA.

Edit to add: Since writing this last night, this morning, I came to a decision on which journal I will be using! Do you have a guess on which one I picked???

Stay tuned! If you read about getting started with watercolors and are waiting for the next installment, don’t worry, I will be posting about journals soon!!

If you haven’t yet, be sure to read THIS and THIS to get to know me a little better, and the things I will share here on the blog!
Don’t forget, you can always find me over on Insta and FB! See you there!