I ventured out of my comfort zone last night and attended, voluntarily, a Christmas party. At said party there was a Chinese gift exchange, a strange phenomenon in which people can steal the gift you've chosen if they have a higher number than yours. For this gift exchange I brought a magnet set which I had made, and I was thrilled when my coworkers proceeded to steal them from each other because they all wanted the set for themselves. It was a simple moment, but a proud one none the less.

After the gift exchange, I was asked several times whether or not I sell my creations and was commissioned on the spot to make polymer earrings similar to ones I have made for myself. And then it came...a simple question...Have you ever thought of making large scale sculptures? An odd question given the present conversation, but despite this my mouth answered before my brain caught up: large scale sculptures involve more materials, bigger messes, power tools even. No, I could never do something like that, I'm not skilled enough to learn how to do that.

As soon as I heard it, I paused. What? What the hell did I just say? Where the hell did that come from? True, I don't know how to do that at the current moment in time...but "I'm not skilled enough to learn how to do that"?? That's not even close to true so why the hell did I say that?

And then it hit me like a ton of bricks:
"You can't use a weed whacker, you'll cut your legs off."
"Just paint, I'll do your books for you. You aren't good at math anyway and you'll never be."
"You're a terrible cook, I thought you'd get better but I was wrong."
"You aren't good at that, stop wasting your time."
"I'll do it for you, you suck at that."
"Just tell me what you want, I'll do it. You don't know what you're doing."
"This way is better. You don't know how to do it so stop trying."
"You're not a teacher, just quit. It's not what you are or what you're good at."
"I'll do it, you'll just mess it up."

For nearly four years these are the things I heard on an almost daily basis. No wonder that sentence came out, but the beauty of it was that I heard it. I heard it and I stopped. I stopped and for the first time in years I processed and assessed the statement rather than just accepting it.

After a momentary lapse, I took back what I had said. It felt good. No, I said. I hadn't really thought about doing large scale sculptures, but I do love the work of Peter Anton and that might be an interesting thing to try.

Will I attempt such a task? Maybe. Probably. But, what matters is that I can. I can learn and I can do. Onward and upward.