On top of the world Ma! Wait a minute.. is that ANOTHER mountain?!

Stupid blinking cursor.

Mocking me because I have no idea how to start.

Were this Rome I would have something appropriate, like a trumpet blast, to get everybody's attention. But this is not Rome and trumpets do not work very well in cyberspace unless you are an annoying coder who knows how to imbed things like that into web pages.

I would say that I digress, but in truth I haven't really started. So I suppose there's nothing really to digress from just yet. Just that annoying ::blink:: ::blink:: ::blink:: from the cursor.

I am Fail.

I suppose it's because there is just no other way to say it except plainly. Which annoys me to no end. I am not plain. I am very clever and very good looking. So way is it so damn difficult to come up with some witty anecdote or turn of phrase right now? ::sigh::

Fine.

I did it.

Sure, that might not mean allot to you, but those three simple words mark the end of a plan that took me nearly 10 years to carry out. Nearly ten years ago I started on the path to becoming a painter by picking a book a dear friend gave me and deciding that art was what I wanted to do with my life. I vowed that in 5 years I would be living solely off my art. And in a matter of speaking, in 5 years I was. At end of November in 2005 I began working at Mission:Renaissance, teaching art; full time. However, as much as it pains me to say it. M:R was not enough for me. I wanted to live off my own painting, to work at it full time; something I only dreamed about doing 10 years ago.

I have had lots of these types of moments in my life. Long-laid plans that culminate in everything I had wanted being handed to me on a platter made of silver. But never like this. Never has it been such a long journey to see the results of what was believed at the time to be a far-fetched dream.

Were the last ten years a movie about climbing a mountain this would be the moment the final credits role.

::He stands triumphantly on the peak, hair blowing gently in the frigid wind. He takes of his coat and throws in to the sky fists raised in triumph as he bellows his victory to the clouds.::

::Fade to credits::

However, when those credits don't role, he looks around and realizes that that mountain open up to an even bigger one and the way back is snowed in. Understandably he has a moment of what can only be described as a "huh..." moment. Before he picks up his jacket and gets to climbing again.

I am, for the moment, a little off-kilter from the shock of actually getting what I've wanted for so long. But only for a moment.

I have a new mountain to climb.

-F