Something in Me Has Stopped Pretending

My body was hesitant from the start. I felt it before I joined, and I ignored it.

On Friday, I decided to leave the Art Gallery as a member. I would rent wall space instead, or they could kick me out completely. I told the president. She pleaded for me to stay. Since I entered the building as a member, I have been the highest-selling artist there every month.

I wanted to belong to a group of active artists. They turned out not to be active.

The gallery has been carrying over five thousand dollars in debt. Every time I asked about a plan to recover it, the answer was the same — we have been here before, it is no big deal. I brought more than ten ideas to meetings. Live artist painting on the boardwalk. Artist trading card events. Auctioning donated pieces for instant cash. Nothing. No interest. Too much extra work.

The last member meeting, I knew. Body, mind, soul. I left asking myself what I was really doing there. Was I so desperate to belong to a group of artists that I would give my soul away? Was I really willing to clean up someone else’s lack of management and debt?

That night I did not sleep. The meeting kept replaying, like something was trying to drill it into me. The next day I was exhausted. It was the only day I painted all week. Painting released the energy. By that evening, I had already admitted the decision to myself.

I recognize, again, that I ignored my initial intuitive knowing. This was another lesson on the same thread — my body knows before my mind will admit it.

I wonder if you know this feeling. The room that looked like belonging. The group that presented itself as one thing and turned out to be another. The moment your body said no long before your mind was willing to admit it. The morning after, when you are exhausted from ignoring yourself.

I have always seen life as potentials. Change this one thing, and it will work, this is always my intuition showing me the bigger picture. That posture serves me in my own life. It does not serve anyone when I bring it into rooms where people’s minds, energy, and beliefs are not willing to open. I am learning to stop pretending I can carry a potential into a room that does not want potentials.

In my mind, artists have always been the revolutionaries. I deeply know I have this thread of revolution coursing through my veins. This was not that group. I have left rooms like this before — school systems, the spiritual world, and now maybe the art world. I keep asking myself if this is normal, or if it is just me, my own self-revolution trying to get my attention.

On my office wall is a painting of mine titled Emerge. I see myself in it every single day. Always emerging from yesterday.

I am a wall renter now, not a member. The meeting has stopped replaying.

Something in me has stopped pretending.

If this resonated, I just started a YouTube channel for women who are done pretending too. Never Retiring. Come find me there.