The problem with time is that it runs away from you.

it slips between your fingers, rampantly disappearing between one paycheck and the next. Before you realise it, years have passed you by.

I was twenty five the last time I had enough space in my head to try pushing towards something I wanted.

Back then it meant Concept Art School – delivered online from an institution in it’s fledgling years. I was mostly self-taught, and had drawn myself into a multitude of bad habits and couldn’t get myself out. Learning Concept Art from someone in the Industry seemed like the chance I desperately needed.

It was. And it wasn’t.

I came out the other side still not quite figuring out how to match the colour gamut of my drawing tablet to the screens I was using. My pictures all dark and one dimensional, looking nothing like what I had worked so hard on. But I had better ideas about composition, about storytelling and design. Tips on lighting it would take me years to finally understand.

But I had time to figure it out, back then. Or so I thought.

In the end, instead of developing my skills and making connections in Melbourne’s thriving Games Industry, I had a breakdown. Then another. And another.

Nothing worked and nothing made sense. I ended up bouncing up and down the country until I finally figured out my Thyroid wasn’t playing fair. I stopped feeling quite so crazy after that.

But the damage was done, so to speak. I’d stopped drawing almost altogether at that point. Stopped writing too. Stopped much of anything.

Starting again was hard. And slow.

So goddamn slow.

But piece by piece things slotted back together. I started writing again. Starting drawing again.

Neither of them enough to get me out of the jobs that make me so unhappy.

But enough to feel good again.

That’s the worst part. About having so many dreams and losing track. You spend so long figuring it all out that by the time you have enough space to breathe and turn around, eight years have gone by.

But time is going to pass anyway.

My grace is the fact I have the space to know where I am again and try again.

So, here’s to trying.