Changing direction.
If you read my first post/stack/blog… whatever we’re calling these things nowadays, we left things at the end of 2022, with me making the fairly enormous decision to completely change my life. A series of events had basically woken me up to the fact that something had to change if I was going to thrive rather than just keep going.
So, at the end of 2022, I put my little flat up for sale. At this point, I didn’t know where I was going. I didn’t know what my working life was going to look like. I didn’t really know what I was doing from one day to the next.
Excellent plan.
I was still trying to process the grief of losing my mum, I’d closed the little business I worked so hard for, and now there was the not so insignificant question of where exactly my income was going to come from. There were some pretty major conversations to be had too.I had to explain to friends and family what I was doing and, looking back, I don’t think many people really understood it, and I don’t blame them.
From the outside looking in, it must have appeared that I’d quite literally combusted. I’d lost my mum, closed my business, put my home up for sale and was talking about moving hundreds of miles away without being entirely sure where. This was probably the hardest part of that period. Not necessarily making the decision, but holding onto it while everything around me still felt uncertain. There were a lot of sleepless nights. Because it’s surprisingly difficult to chase an alternative version of your life when the sensible voice in your head (and sometimes the voices around you) are asking whether you might want to reconsider and do something a little more… normal.
But I knew I couldn’t go back to the life I’d had before, and then something strange happened. Once I’d actually committed to changing my life, things started falling into place remarkably quickly. My flat sold. My partner and I found a house we loved far more easily than we’d expected. Some inheritance came through at exactly the point I needed it and helped fund the move, suddenly, after all those months of uncertainty, we were here. North.
In a house surrounded by countryside, with enough space for me to work from home and absolutely no need to rent another commercial studio. It wasn’t some fairytale moment where everything became perfect overnight. Financially, things were tight.There were still plenty of moments when I wondered what on earth I’d done, but something fundamental had changed. I wasn’t spending every day trying to maintain a life I didn’t actually want anymore.
I’d exchanged noise for quiet.
Pressure for space.
Feeling trapped for the possibility of something else.
And even when money was uncertain, everything else felt so much better that it didn’t carry the same weight it once had. I think that’s one of the biggest things I’ve learnt from that time. When life feels chaotic, our instinct is often to cling even harder to whatever feels safe and familiar. Keep the job. Keep the house. Keep doing the thing you’ve always done because at least you know what happens next.
Sometimes that’s absolutely the right thing to do.
But sometimes the safe option is also the thing keeping you stuck. I don’t think you have to blow your entire life up every time you’re unhappy (I’d imagine that gets expensive) but I do think there are moments when you know, somewhere deep down, that something doesn’t fit anymore, and for me, this was one of them. What I hadn’t anticipated was that changing my surroundings would start changing other things too.
The pace of my days changed.
What I noticed changed.
What I wanted changed.
And eventually, the way I painted changed. Which was slightly inconvenient because I’d spent years trying to work out who I was as an artist, and just when I thought I might finally have an answer…
I didn’t want to paint like that anymore.