Sometimes our Hesperis just needs a safe place to vent and let her own excellent thinking clear up for making a new beginning... a place to be reminded that there are smart, loving people who believe in her. And that's true, here at Mudcat.

Hes, I want you to talk to our daughter who has had many of the same challenges and comes to them from the same age and maturity I see in you. She's made some serious progress in the last year.

One piece I can tell you, from what she has shared with me, is the following.

Sometimes you have to follow conventional advice and take conventional steps in order to get to the place where you can do what you want, what gives you joy, what fits how you are created as a person. You have to trust yourself and believe in your dream enough to give it only a small amount of care and feeding on a daily basis while you build the capacity for it.... spend enough time and energy each day to be self-sufficient, and use the energy this generates, to grow the dream.

A short way of saying this is to observe that there are many people who want to do web design and a music career, but for most of us this has to be a hobby. The people who end up being able to do them professionally come to them from a strong base of health and at least some financial stability.... there are no Medici's to sponsor the starving artist in our present society, so we have to equip ourselves and support ourselves.....

I'd love to have someone fund my existence so I could teach water fitness and do gospel music all day, but as it is, these can only occupy my leisure time right now and so they are hobbies-- gifts I undeniably have, but which I can only offer as gifts to others. There's a lot of joy in that.

Keep plugging away, sweetie.

~Susan