I'm a good artist. I'm also a great lover.

If you do something, if you like doing something, does the doing of that thing make you the thing you are doing? That’s convoluted; I know. So let me put it this way, if you create art, are you an artist? If you write, are you a writer? If you love, does that make you a lover? If you question things, does that make you an interrogator?

What if you are good at doing something? Are you allowed to say so? If you are allowed to say so, or you shouldn’t, why and why not? How, why, and when did we learn that we were and/or were not allowed to say: I can do this and I am good at it?

Think about it. If you’re a good cook, do people mind if you say so? Usually not. They want a bite of whatever you’re serving up. And, we all gotta eat. So good for you if you can make a necessity tasty. But what if you say you are a great musician? Isn’t that for us to decide? How dare you know you’re talented?

See? This is what I am talking about. Is it only okay to say you’re good at something if a lot of people can do it too, like cook? But then, if your talent is for something many people wished they could do, longed to be as deft at it as you, then…what? No? Maybe you shouldn’t tell others you’re kill’n it? Are you supposed to let others decide if you’ve excelled, and then they can let you know?

A lot of people can love… So? I’m just saying: Why not say we’re good at loving? But we don’t. Do we? Don’t we think we’re good at loving? Is that why we don’t think we deserve love? Who told us that?

Think about it some more. What if you really are pretty amazing at something and someone else, who doesn’t know crap about that thing, tells you that you’re bad. Yer just not up to snuff, they’re tell’n ya.

What if you start to believe you’re no good? What if you already believe that? What about when a good child has a bad parent, and that parent tells the child they’re no good at being them? How is that different? No, really. I want to know.

Seems like the system sucks. This time it’s wrong to say you’re good, another time it’s okay. Wait. No. Now that’s arrogant. Nah, in this case it’s cool. Okay no. Okay go.

Come on, people.

How about this? While I have created art, I have drawn and painted and, at times, sculpted and carved, and have done so since I was old enough to pick up a crayon, because of some rules no one really laid out for me, but I implicitly understood, I never even allowed myself to say that I was an artist, let alone a good one. It wasn’t until after I thought I’d earned the right to say it that I could even utter the words. That right came in waves and took a long time.

Wave number one: During my first semester of art school an engineering student, who had a bright blue streak in his mid-night black Mohawk, told me, after he learned I was an art major, that I didn’t look like an artist. “What do most artists look like?” I asked. “Like me,” he said.

“Well, I’m still an artist, even if I don’t look like one,” I said.

Harrumph! Who was he to decide? I was putting myself through school on student loans, which I am still paying off. If I’d wanted the education that bad, I figured I must be an artist and I was allowed to say so. So there!

Wave two: During my art education I learned that while many struggled to create, fought harder to make something good, I wasn’t struggling.

Wave three: Once out of school, after my education had also taught me that, in art, as in many things, some skills are learned and others are natural, I came up with another conclusion. When something comes more naturally to one person than it does to another, and/or when a person loves what they are doing (so they keep, keep, keep doing it), they’re usually pretty dang good at it. Or, they get good because they refuse to stop practicing.

So now I tell people that I am an artist, and that I’m good. I say, “Whether you like my art or you don’t, I am still talented.”

I know what they’re thinking when I say this. I can see it on their faces.

A) Wow. WTF! This chick is A-RRO-gant!
B) Man, since she’s bragging about being a good artist, I hope she’s at least a decent artist because that would suck if she sucks. Poor, delusional girl.

Want to know a secret? It’s because of the way people look at me when I tell them that I am a talented artist that I tell them so in the first place. So what if I did suck, which I don’t. Why can’t I think and say I am good at something? What? Because I was told I shouldn’t? They need to learn, as I have, that it’s my right to like me and what I can do.

Those young, hopeful singers who audition to be the next American Idol all think they’re good and say so. No matter how delusional some of them may be, aren’t you just a little bit jealous that they have something you might not? No matter what someone is telling them, they can’t hear it. There’s nothing wrong with them, damn it, and they’ll tell you so.

Good for them! Really. That’s why I love the beginning auditions of American Idol. Not to see people make asses out of themselves (okay, that’s funny, too, because we all need to laugh at ourselves), but to witness the strength of the human spirit. Those auditioning, bad or good, they’re telling the world: I want this and I think I am worth it.

We've all paid our dues. We get to break the rules. Society, or our parents, or someone (who knows who is saying it anymore) told us that we have to hold back, that we can’t tell people we’re great. Screw them all.

I’m going off road and coloring outside of the lines. I’m forgetting it all, what I’ve been fed about proper form and the right ratio and proportion of color in my life. Let’s all kick some serious making-our-own-way-of-it ass! Let’s tell people we’re awesome and let’s work it.

Who cares if every person you come across may not be buying what you are selling. That shouldn’t change the art, the creation, the beauty that is us. Let’s not let some dealer, who’s like an art snob or who thinks they know better than us, sell us the wrong goods. No one has the right to tell us that the creation of us is less.

I’m serious about this. Let’s call BULLSHIT. Cough it under your breath, cough out loud and clear. Just make sure you’re the one calling the shots when it comes to knowing how fabulous you are. If you’re the one telling yourself you’re less, call bullshit on you. And, until you’re not full of it anymore, gravitate toward those who will remind you what a great creation you are. That’s what I do.

I’ve met another great creation, by the way. We’ll call her Rynn. I wasn’t surprised to find I was hitting it off with Rynn, who I had the pleasure of meeting and hanging out with over the holiday weekend. Rynn is Ava’s best friend. Since I know I already adore Ava, and she inspires me, it was a slam dunk that Rynn would be wonderful.

I’m telling you…the good ones gravitate towards each other. My mother was smart to tell me, very early on, to surround myself with the kind of people I wanted to be. That’s why I’ve befriended smart, funny, amazing, strong, kind, and spiritually generous women.

Rynn didn’t flinch when I told her I was a good artist, which makes her among the few who haven’t. True, both Rynn and her mother are artists, so she knows artists and art. But, as Rynn, Ava, and I have all agreed, while art is up to the viewer once the creation is offered, when it comes to loving ourselves, we are the creation and it’s up to us to have the right view of ourselves regardless of who is looking.

How is what I am saying now any different than what I always say, in some variation hereof, in all my blog posts? It’s not. Not by much.

But lately, I’ve really been feel’n my skin. Sure, I might kill Little Miss Sunshine again, perhaps tomorrow, or some other day (a bad day) especially because I’m still not dig’n my job and I can’t stand where I live because I miss the natural light of my old place. But right now, I’m here. Dark-ass condo on a buggy golf course or not, I’m ready. I know my life, every life, is designed by love and connections.

I know it’s up to us to tell the world that we deserve love and that we're worth it. They say no one gets out alive. I say no one gets out unloved or unconnected. As such, we know what colors work for us. We know what we feel connected to and what we should pull the plug on because it turns us off. Every person, every lover, and every experience is just another shade of paint we get to choose as the artists of our lives. We even get to decide when the muddy of indecision works for us.

You know what else? We also get to love ourselves enough to tell everyone how great we are and that they should love us just as much. Should we consider what has been said: No one can love you until you love yourself? Is it true? Yes and no.

Anyone can love the hell out of you. You can love anyone all you want, even if they don’t love themselves. But, chances are, if you don’t love yourself, or the person you love doesn’t love themselves, the love being given probably won’t get in. If it does get in, it might not stick because it won’t have anything to connect to. I think that’s what that saying really means. It means give some Velcro. Be the soft side or the sticky side, but either way give love hooks and loops to hang onto.

I didn’t used to get that. But I do now. I mean I really understand that more than ever. I so get it, that it is the most amazing feeling I've ever felt. Regardless of bad days, of annoying things that come my way, the feeling doesn’t go away. I know I got a lot of hooks and loops for love to hang its connections on. It’s awesome, this feeling.

The difference between getting older, being me Now versus being who I've been when I was younger, is that I used to question if I deserved the love I wanted. Now, it seems weird that I wouldn’t get all the love I want or all the love coming my way.

And, just like I am not afraid to tell people I’m a good artist, I’m no longer afraid to tell people that love is mine for the asking. I've never felt more deserving of love. Feeling this way has nothing to do with me becoming a better person or good-er human being. This is how every person should feel, and by practicing this feeling, it’s here more Now.

The truth is, I cannot wait to see what love Love has in store for me now that I know I have always been love. I wish this knowledge, and the feeling that comes from knowing this, for every woman, for every man. I wish everyone learns to recognize their talents. I hope we all find the connection to Being who we were all meant to be.

Being and loving ourselves is the real true love. It’s our talent, our biggest asset, and our most precious gift to give. So let’s all be the great artists of our lives and be even better lovers.