Have you ever invested cash in a hobby or project because you hoped you’d be compelled to justify the cost, only to abandon the hobby before ever getting started? This has happened to me a few times. In fact, I’d previously bought a drawing pad that needs to connect to the laptop via Bluetooth, but I kept pushing off using it until the pad was drained of battery. At which point, I set it aside to charge, and then I forgot about it until it died again, rinse and repeat. This kept happening until I finally committed to drawing…and discovered that the pen was lost at some point. I couldn’t locate it, and replacing the pen was almost as much as replacing the whole pad. Instead, I decided to shell out bigger dollars to get a drawing pad that would immediately reflect my drawings. And since I didn’t want to trust my occasionally laggy laptops to process my drawing, I opted to pay EVEN MORE to get a standalone drawing pad.

Long story short? I had to buy a replacement protector screen because the one I’d bought was covered in bits before I ever took the plastic off it. I have to put it on my drawing pad, but now I’ve been away from using it so much that I’ve probably let it die. Am I repeating the same bad behavior? Yes. But this is a cycle, and cycles can be broken. Diligence, awareness, and patience are necessary to pull ourselves out of bad habits. I’m more driven than before to start drawing, even if all I can manage right now are stick figures. I need to start, and taking this drawing class has been helping push me to start practicing, even if all I’ve done is what we covered in class. We all have to start somewhere, and we have to be content to do it for ourselves, no one else. I’m looking forward to seeing what gets done in the coming weeks.