Permission

Permission is one of those things women learn too late in life.

It's part of the invisible oppression patriarchy still claims. There is a place you will eventually get to where you recognize this as being separate from loyalty, family, and tradition. There is a place that you get to where you have to finally chose to stop hating yourself so much that you deny another peaceful place to reside. 

I am trying my best to slow down in the places that I can. I am finding that I am losing track of the days, weeks, months, and yes, even the years. The pace is so exhausting that the timeline I exist within is marked with exhaustion forced continuums outside of a lunar/solar calendar. I am missing seasons within this. I know it, and yet I perpetuate it. To attempt to thwart my own destined path, I try to schedule a pause. I sit with a morning cup of coffee and take breathing time everyday. Me time. Slow down for an hour to reacquaint myself with myself. 

The life I have built I now recognize will change regardless of my wishes and intentions. You cannot live within veterinary medicine and not be faced with mortality, life changing decisions and tearful goodbyes on a daily basis. You are constantly reminded that there is death waiting for us all. You also recognize the fragility of life and the deep love that exists within these relationships. 

This morning it is pouring outside. A fall rain so intense it mars out the rest of the competing sounds. The birds call to each other through the persistent percussion of droplets that veil the landscape. It is a reminder that snow is on its way. The leaves fall in submission to the forces that remind us all that we too will get too tired to stay vibrant. This morning, this moment is pure perfection that I claim as my own within my home that bears so many reminders of this life I have lived.

It is here, in these moments with my pets, my life's purpose that warm, cinnamon topped coffee, a soft putter of playing kittens, and two adoring pups, lets me escape into the magazines that I adore. Here's the place I found myself called into. 

"Permission to Become," an article in What Women Create about Kristin M. Steinke. An artist who spent 217 years as a military intelligence officer and consultant who know creates travel inspired mixed media art. Here is the paragraph that stopped me..

"The most powerful thing I did for my creative life was give myself permission to be an artist. At first, the word felt audacious. Artist. It sounded like someone else had to grant me, something I needed to earn through a perfect body of work, a certain kind of studio, or years of outside validation. Eventually I realized the title is not handed over. It is claimed. You take it. 

"Hello! Reading your article in Women Create struck a chord with me. So, I thought I would share. My mom was an incredible artist. It was her true passion and she was immensely talented. My father saw it as a frivolous pastime that could not be profitable and therefore would not permit me, his first borne, to follow. I was sent to a military academy. 10 years later, after what others would call a 'successful regimented career' that had me away half of the year, I changed career paths and left for veterinary school; my other passion. To this day I still cannot give myself permission to leave this second career to be a full time artist. Primarily because I feel a compelled calling to be a healer to others. I cannot leave the animals. So, I paint, write and create in my sparse off time. I am at peace with it all now. But, it took a while. Thank you for sharing your story."

What are you waiting for permission for, and what is it costing you while you deliberate?