It's all good

I found out yesterday I wasn't invited in for an interview with my former high school for that director of communications position. The rejection letter was really nice, though -- it was actually personally written, which is so much better than DEAR APPLICANT, DROP DEAD WHILE WE LAUGH AT YOU FOR APPLYING IN THE FIRST PLACE. Ahem. Obviously.

Rejection sucks, of course, but it's okay in the grand scheme of things because I know I'm not meant to work in PR forever. I'm destined to work with color and be creative and to wear jeans and, like, paint and write all day. (And get paid for it.) I'm actually interested in opening my own store in the next couple of years, something that is both related to making crafts (I cannot express strongly enough how much that doesn't mean scrapbooking because ew), as well as having some witchy stuff to sell. Sort of like a nice little store where one can pick up essential oils and incense, meditation CDs, take a yoga class, paint a picture, host a writing group, drink some tea, buy some crystals, books, colorful wall hangings, etc. I actually came up with a name already: Crafty Coven. Or maybe A Crafty Coven so I can be near the beginning of the listings in the phone book.

I realized a couple days ago that I'm coming out, if you will, as an artist. To wit, I struggled a great deal, as many gay people do, with accepting myself as a lesbian before I came out. I was still labeling myself as bisexual when others knew -- and commented on the fact -- that I was clearly a homo. I tried going on dates with and sleeping with guys during that time period, not realizing that straight girls don't have to force themselves to like boys. What felt unnatural and weird and wrong really was wrong ... for me. About 10 years ago, in a last-ditch effort to, I don't know, win the Heterosexual Olympics, I tried to seduce the cutest boy I knew. He was a sexy, long-haired musician whom I had a semblance of a crush on. The results were, as you can guess, fairly disastrous. He was drunk and sort of into it and I was ... well, just really, really queer.

After that mortifying, soul-crushing, humiliating experience, I stopped trying to force myself to be what I wasn't and came out as a lesbian, which was one of the best things I ever did for myself. (Another was getting a two-hour professional massage from a cute lesbian who used warm, heavenly scented oils in a heated room, but that's beside the point.) I feel now that I need to "officially" come out as an artist because I've been forcing myself to be someone I'm not -- a big business PR marketing strategy networking ramp up type -- for the past few years. I keep applying for PR-type jobs, especially when I'm desperate to escape working for my dad, and not accepting that PR is not where I'm meant to be. This time around, I'm trying to win the Public Relations Olympics and it's not happening. It explains why I look at my coworkers with disbelief -- they're meant to be in this business. They're the proverbial straight girl who lustily romps with boys while I stand to the side, scratching my head, wondering how they do it without wanting to hurl.

So ... rather than trying to get another job in PR, applying to a Social Work Master's program, moving to Chicago so I can go to grad school for Women's Studies, or high-tailing it to San Diego (to list just a few of the major plans I announced on my blog in the past two years that failed to ever come to fruition), I am turning myself gently in the direction of my true purpose. I love art and creativity, crafts, color, the Goddess and I can easily see all of those things coming together in an explosion of awesomeness called My Store. Initially, it was going to be a bookstore but I got burned by my years in retail chain hell and I tossed away the idea. But I can see myself getting back into retail in the good way -- the independent store way.

The good news, believe it or not, is that I don't feel a surge of adrenaline when I think about opening my own store. In the past, I've had the aforementioned ideas about new jobs and graduate programs and thought, "That's IT! That's what I'm meant to do!" and I would blog about it, tell King V, chatter away to friends and family ... and then my "dream" would fizzle within the next couple of weeks as I realized [insert decision here] wasn't right for me. But yesterday when I was thinking about what I would need to do prior to opening a store (read: win lottery), I felt nothing but calm. The decision just felt right. I made a rough plan for the next couple of years which included paying off my credit cards/debt (this year) and saving money and buying inventory (next year) and possibly opening in 2010. (Ha! Store ... of the Future. Dun dun duuunn!) My friend Luckdragon even found a house for sale in River City that would be ideal -- I could live on one side and have the store on the other. Of all the things I've said I was going to do, this feels like the one thing that will actually happen. I feel authentic and that's fucking awesome.