May 20

Sometimes you get the damn sit down talk

family issues

I went home to Lawrenceville Wednesday with the intention to spend some time with my younger sisters, and maybe watch The Incredibles on DVD with the youngest. What I got was a 3 hour long lecture/interrogation from the elder parental units after dinner.

It’s always the same questions. Why I wanted to go live on my own. Why I chose to support myself, instead of depending on my mother for financial support, for both life and school. I had a revelation while listening to them. I could pinpoint the exact moment I decided that I had to support myself. It was the summer of 2003, right after my foray in Boston for the summer. The moment my mother told me, right after i was forced out of the closet to her, that I was not going back to Miami for school. While I did end up going back to Miami for another year, I realized then who held the keys, and that if I wanted to live a life in which I could live freely, I had to do what was in my power to make sure that I held the keys to my own life, not someone else. That kicked in the workaholic bug the minute I stepped back on Miami soil. I stubbornly tried to wean myself off dependence on my mother, working two jobs, one on weekdays, and another on weekends, sometimes having them overlap. I did it all in expense of my focus on my studies, and I know I will regret that in the future.

We all have to make our decisions in life, and I have to stress that it was my decision.

On a good note, my afternoon at home was extremely productive. I’ve been struggling for the past few months/year trying to spark my creative juices. After many failed attempts in new directions, I decided to go back to basics. There was a time of my life, where I had developed a style utilizing halftone patterns and images I had taken, and bold, solid colors. I decided to go back to basics, and began to experiment again with the long task of extracting images, playing with colors and creating halftones. I found a spark, and I managed to create a new look for a web-site I had been struggling with for a while. I also got inspiration for a new look for this blog. The following are two examples of the work I came up with yesterday. The first is the announcement graphic for my new redesign for this web-site, and the second is the mock-up of the web-site I am working on for the Alliance at GSU.

Enjoy.