Reflections

Worthless. It's all worthless. The daggers of the reality she now perceives as the utter refuse of her existence settle into her spirit, tearing at her heart as she sweeps her arm across her desk, sending flurries of papers and books sprawling to the floor. What's the use of even trying? Breaking down in sobs, she sinks past the chair and curls over her own knees on the floor, releasing the waves of her despair against the desk in her study.

Kaia had reached yet another breaking point. Another failure in a lengthy list of ongoing failures. How many times had she submitted her stories and art to publishers or galleries? She had lost count. Not even one would give her a chance to get her work recognized, and those who have critiqued her work were brutal about it. Disheartened, she had tossed those failures aside and moved on, even though it broke her heart when they were so cruelly rejected. She was determined to get it right. To finally create something that would be recognized and awarded with resounding accolades. Something that could finally give her the life she so desperately wanted. A life free of financial turmoil and full of creative ecstasy.

Heh, what a lie. She has been playing this game of hope and change for years, and the only thing that has changed is that she's in far worse debt now than ever and still a failure as an artist and author.

I guess the nay-sayers were right. Making a living as a creator is an illusion and just doesn't work. She was laid off over a year ago and had decided to use it as an opportunity to dive into her dream of becoming a professional artist and author. She had done everything she could think of to do it right. She took classes and invested in various programs and editors to ensure she produced quality work. She could feel herself improving and was genuinely pleased with most of her works and thought the world of them, but she seemed to be alone in that opinion. Of course, friends and family tried to bring her solace with their compliments and admiration of her work, but clearly it is not measuring up to standards of social acceptance or popularity. She loves her friends and family, but what good are their opinions if no one else wants anything she creates? It's hopeless.

That night, Kaia hardly slept a wink. All she could do was lay in bed reminiscing over how wasted her life felt. Perhaps she should just resort to going back to the jobs she could get. It seems like every time she thinks she figured out what she wants in life, she gets knocked down and kicked until she resigns herself to settling for some low-paying, unfulfilling work, because that's all she seems to be able to get. She had sacrificed so much to take this leap into a creative field. She spent thousands on formal training, supplies, self-marketing, and so much more, and all for nothing.

The next morning Kaia got up and, not even bothering to eat breakfast, went straight to her attic to start clearing out her drafts and "masterpieces," - or not. She brought a large trash bag with her and was resolved to throw away all her work, because they merely served as reminders of wasted time and resources on a useless and impossible dream. She was not gentle with this task. She shoved several pages and canvasses into the trash bag and swept stacks off tables and shelves. In one such sweep of a shelf, a little black book flew off and landed pages down on the floor. Kaia looked at it curiously. She did not recognize this book. She usually used notepads or three-ring notebook paper for her handwritten notes and ideas.

Setting the trash bag down for a moment, she walked over and picked up the strange little book and opened it. It was blank. Just a small, plain notebook with a simple black cover and a small strap that can connect the back cover to the front to keep it closed, which was unhooked. Kaia looked around curiously, not sure where this little black book came from. She didn't remember ever buying one like this, and she was very familiar with everything she kept in her attic, since she often worked up here. It just felt odd and out of place. After a few moments of curiosity, Kaia returned to her depressed resolve and decided it didn't matter. She figured she likely won't need it anyway, since she is giving up writing and artwork, so she tossed the little black book into the trash bag with the rest of her work and thought nothing more of it.

After taking multiple bags of failed creative works out to her trash bin, Kaia returned to her study and plopped into her desk chair. The piles of papers she had thrown on the floor the previous night remained untouched, as she opened her laptop and began researching jobs that she might qualify for based on her standard resume and experience. Experience she wasn’t particularly thrilled about, since none of it represented what she truly desired to do. As she was settling into some of her online searches, she happened to see out of the corner of her eye, a peculiar object just behind her laptop on her desk that she hadn’t noticed before. It looks just like that little black book that she threw away in the attic. She picked it up and opened it. It is blank, just like the other one. Is this the same book? It couldn’t be, she definitely threw the other one away, but she also felt sure that this book was not here last night, nor today when she first entered. Surely she would have noticed it earlier if it was...

Perplexed by this odd little book that seems to have come out of nowhere, she figured she may have simply overlooked it previously, since she has been so busy lately and the last few days have been stressful and emotionally taxing. She shrugged and tossed the book on the floor with the other pages and files from last night and proceeded to gather information on the usual dead-end jobs she has had in the past.

After a few hours, she finally gave into the hunger pangs that were assaulting her stomach now, making it impossible to focus, and went to the kitchen to get some food. She was in no mood to make anything more than the easiest of heat-and-eat meals, so she grabbed the last of her microwavable on-the-go meals from the freezer and popped it in the microwave. Leaning against the kitchen counter while she waited, her eye drifted to the breakfast table. What in the world? She saw it again. A little black book with a simple clasp, resting neatly on the table. This time a pen was next to it. Cautiously, and with a bit of concern as to how and why this little black book keeps appearing in front of her at random locations, especially after she has thrown it away twice already, she approached the book and picked it up.

Opening it again to examine the book, she found it blank, and looking exactly as the previous two books looked. Or were they different books? She found herself beginning to feel very unnerved by this book. She opened the glass door to the back yard and threw the book as far as she could and hit the fence at the back of the yard, then closed and locked the door. She looked at the pen as well. It seemed normal enough and could have just been there all along possibly. It was a simple ballpoint pen that she probably bought in bulk at an office store. She put that back in a pen jar and went back to her food.

Feeling confident that she wouldn’t see the book anymore, she brought her lunch with her back to her study to continue her job search and applications. No sooner did she get back to her desk and set her food down that she found her laptop closed and sitting on top of it was the little black book! This time with a lovely fountain pen laying across it. Now she was genuinely starting to worry. She looked around the room. Everything was as she had left it, except the book she threw on the floor was no longer there, and her laptop was closed. Something weird was going on, and it felt like this book was somehow calling her to write something in it.

Timorously, Kaia slowly picked up the pen and sat at her desk. She opened the strange little black book and hovered the pen over the first page. Uncertain of what to write, she suddenly felt compelled to pour her heart out onto the page. She began writing down all her anger, tears, fears, hopes and dreams, and how they felt crushed. She flooded the pages with the inner demons that haunted her memories, the unrealistic expectations that she had held over herself and the misguided efforts she had put forth to please people she didn’t even know. As she bled the ink into the pages, the book almost seemed to come alive with seemingly tangible images that took her on a journey through her own life and soul. In releasing all her stresses, dreams, and beliefs about herself and her world into the pages of this little black book, she felt a sense of lightness and freedom when she was finished. It is as if the book itself took on all her burdens and suddenly she felt clarity about herself and her situation.

It was like a heavy veil was just lifted from her eyes, and she realized that she had been going about her creative work the wrong way. The training and practice were all well and good, but she had been doing work to meet the expectations of others, not for herself. She was creating for the sake of money and recognition. She was creating to live, rather than living to create. This new revelation was very freeing to her, and Kaia felt a renewed inspiration to create art and stories once more, but this time she would create from her passion, not from what she thinks might sell. If she can sell her work that would be great, but for now, she would create just for the joy of creation, and that will be enough.

So, Kaia pressed on with her new-found inspiration. She wrote in her little black book every day to process her feelings, to get new ideas, to remember her joy and relieve her stresses, and her creative work finally started to reflect her own passions. She still had to get a job while she worked on her art, but she felt happier just creating. Then, an unexpected thing happened...

Kaia posted examples of her stories and her artwork on local casual art and fiction networks, when one day, one of her stories went viral. Soon after, Kaia received a letter from a large publishing company offering her a $20,000 contract to publish her latest work, and more if she would continue creating stories for them to publish! Kaia about fell off her chair when she read the offer. Only when she finally stopped striving so hard to get such a contract and started creating from her true passions did she now get the opportunity to quit the dead-end jobs and work full time on her dreams. What amazing wonders came from a simple little black book! If only I had used it sooner, she thought, as she held it close and cried tears of joy.