Late in Posting, Not in Doing

This is my page from week 12 of Documented Life (you can read more about DL HERE), where the prompt was to cut up a magazine and add it to your page.  I actually had this spread finished on time...I just haven't had any time to post it.  Ugh.  I even have this week's spread done too...I hate feeling behind when I'm not actually behind!

This was one of my less favorite prompts...I love how other people can do collage work...especially with magazines...I just don't think it's my forte...know what I mean?

But in the spirit of 'tough crap, just do it', I made this spread:

"Now and Then"

I have a limited supply of magazine choices to work with...Better Homes and Gardens and Southern Living...my options were pretty much flowers and ads...so here you have what I could do with flowers and ads...

The left page represents how I feel currently:

"I'm scared.  I don't know if I can.  I don't know if I can do this."

I went with a yellow background color...you know, because if you're a chicken, then you're yellow...but it was really bland looking...so I added the grey...still bland...so I used that bright orange marker.  Good gravy...it is BRIGHT!  I think this page is so LOUD.  I think that it matches what I'm feeling right now...the timid yellow and grey are feeling puny and wimpy...the bright orange of my fears yelling at me that I won't be able to do the things I want...yeah...there you go...color metaphor...

The right page is about the future:

The magazine prompt part of the spread...

There's such a huge difference between the two pages of this spread...they hardly go together at all.  But to me they do...  This page is my after...after I face my fears and make a move...after all the discomfort and trying times are done...then I get to this point...eventually.

"But we did do it, didn't we?"
"Yes dear...we did it.  We made a good life for ourself."
On a side note, the girl on the porch looks like she's from a tampon ad...I don't know what kind of ad she actually came from, but she totally looks like she's from a feminine hygiene sort of ad, doesn't she?

Those ladies are me at various stages.  On the left page, it's me now...scared and unsure of what to do/what will happen.  On this page, on the porch, that's me immediately after all the sucky stuff is over and life is getting to be what I choose it to be...where I am standing in the light at the end of the tunnel.  And then in the window, that's me looking back over my life...being happy, knowing I made the best choices I could, knowing that everything really did turn out ok and for the best.

Right now, that left page seems so far away.  I feel so mired in indecision...guilt for thinking of some of the things I think about...fearful of the unknown.  

Do you ever get that feeling like something is about to happen?  Like some secret shoe is about to drop on you and turn your world upside down?  I feel like that right now.  I don't know why.  Nothing's happened to give that feeling any merit...and yet I feel it.  It's like everything has been calm and I suddenly realized it's the calm before the storm...and I've only got a few minutes to batten down the hatches.  Who knows...

I've been telling myself nothing will come of it...that it's just a random feeling I've got from being too tired and working too much and not having enough play time...making me a very dull girl indeed.  But I find myself discreetly preparing for the upheaval anyway.  In small ways, I've been bolstering myself for something...I don't even know what...just something.  

I find myself feeling agitated and aggressive...like I want to strike the first blow on an enemy that hasn't even made himself known yet.  And that's not like me.  I hate conflict.  I hate confrontation.  I'm passive.  I let things happen and then decide from there what to do.  I don't act...I react.  But here I am, ready to take a swing at the first thing that pops it's head up.  It's like all my life my fuse has been slowly burning and now it's getting towards the end...shorter and shorter and soon something explosive is going to happen.

It's so strange, because I remember feeling extremely and uncharacteristically optimistic about this year just a few months ago.  In December and January, I was so happy-go-lucky, with a similarly illogical feeling about this year being a good one.  And that feeling is still there, waiting in the wings...but now I have this odd feeling of unrest...of something in the air.  Change is coming.  I don't know how or why or what...but it's coming.  And I know change is always happening...but whatever this is, it's big...it's major...and it's looming just on the horizon.  It feels exciting and menacing at the same time...FREAKY, I know...

To be honest, the whole thing is a little unnerving.  And that's what this spread is about, I guess.  Because whatever happens, it will be ok.  I can deal with it.  I can get through it.  I can thrive.  I can get handed lemons and make lemonade and all that good stuff.  I know I can.  But right now...in my moments of weak impatience...in the dark days before this possible impending gigantic s*** storm that's about to happen (Tom Petty was right...the waiting IS the hardest part), I feel scared...and I suppose I just needed a visual reminder that whatever happens, I'm going to be able to make myself a good life.  No matter how I feel right now, I know I'm not really weak...I'm not helpless or powerless.  Quite the contrary.  

I know I can work through a lot of things, because I already have.  It's one good thing about not always having had an easy life...you know from experience that you can get through it and get past it.  I've been through the ringer before, and I'll go through again, I'm sure.  It isn't pleasant during, but you come out fresh and clean on the other side...  And maybe that's why this ominous feeling I'm having is accompanied by optimism...because I know how good a fresh start can feel.