Wow.  It’s been a long time.

Life has settled into consistency.  Work at Dun & Bradstreet, come home to workout and make dinner, teach fitness classes two mornings a week, see the family and friends three nights during the week, and spend the weekends with the new beau.

All sorts of emotions bubble up when I least expect them regarding vulnerability/trust/guilt/regret.  Torn between feeling regret over my disregard for consequences this summer.  And yet still somewhat proud of myself for letting go of my inhibitions and allowing myself a short span of careless living.  An “immaturity” I had never allowed myself before.

Falling in love again, though… That has been an overwhelmingly joyous experience.  He is gentle; he is steadfast; he is social and lively; he is beautiful; he is creative; he is driven.  He is everything I wanted but didn’t hope could exist in one person.  So naturally, I feel like running for the hills every other day or so.

Worried that it’s too soon.  Worried that I’m not ready.  Worried that I’ll destroy another relationship.  Worried that I will crumble and won’t ever try again.  Don’t know how to trust another man with my heart, my mistakes, my flaws, my failures, my fears, my insecurities, my hopes, my ambitions…  Don’t know how to allow myself to connect to someone enough for them to be able to leave me and hurt me.  Finding that the facades and mazes I took the last few months constructing between my inner self and others aren’t as protective as I was hoping.

Leave next week for Chicago to spend four days with Julia.  Yay for no work, yay for new city, yay for walking until my feet ache.

Part of the Chicago trip is to check out Art Institute and grad school programs.  Talked to my dad a couple of weeks ago about my decisions.  Four schools at the moment — SCAD, UT Austin, Art Institute of Chicago, and University of Cape Town.  His opinion is that I bust my butt to get to Cape Town, especially after my Fulbright heartbreak.  My only hesitation is that I have been so happy being close to my parents and siblings.  I like being able to help out when needed.  And my life is slowly easing into a pleasant routine.  But, again, my dad knows my curiosity and my traveler-nature.  He said, “I don’t want you to wake up in six years at 29, with a kid and another husband, and say, ‘Shit, what have I been doing?’”  After five years of settling, I woke up and said, “Shit, what have I been doing?”  So avoiding that feeling again is definitely going to be a driving factor in my decisions.

South Africa has been calling me for so long.  The opportunity to work with Jane Alexander and Berni Searle.  Those ladies have completely changed how I view my capacity as an artist and motivated me to maintain a social-activism component to my conceptualization.  I just hope that everything is a Samuel Fosso photograph, just like Janet Jackson sees it:

Oh, and Chris Thile will be in Carrboro on Nov 7th.  I hope everyone is ready for him to run away with me.

And I’ll post photos of my new pieces soon.  Three new series in the works.