I embraced turning 40. I didn't lament it.
By the time I turned 40, I had opened and closed a studio space that I had thrown my heart into. Along with LW's sweat.
I tell people I closed it down due to c○vid restrictions interfering with being able to socially gather. That wasn't fully it.
Finding the place where I fit in beyond motherhood hit me hard after going through post partum eclampsia with Beanie. I questioned everything.
There was a space I started asking questions about. Negotiated terms and then- we were working on it.
It was theeee most emotionally and mentally tumultuous year of my life. At the end of it, it reaffirmed something I always knew but often forgot.
We spent the first few months renovating. Making the place what we needed to be. My anxiety grew. While trying to sort my creative supplies, my intentions and make the space work, I had to contend with almost daily conversations about what I was doing.
Missing my mother, grandmother and godmother (who have all passed away) has left me with a raw spot that sometimes gets soothed by older women embodying a mothering spirit.
There was someone always buzzing in my ear and kept giving me ideas and suggestions and showed me her own creative things. I thought I found someone who got it. Another creative who understood what I wanted to do. Let's ignore me having to repeatedly explain to her my goals for the space.
All I wanted was a space where people could come and make something or paint or draw or color. People in passing would stop and ask if I was opening a bar. Because y'know, the area needed another one. One asked if it was a daycare. I pressed on.
I advertised sip n paints, marble painting, destressing activities, slime making and all that. I successfully hosted four events in the space, Beanie's first birthday party, her big sister's 12th birthday sip & paint party, a teacher's appreciaton sip & paint, and a mini slime making session hosted by Chaela. I shared marble painting with one or two people - one of them didn't seemed too moved. Sigh.
Eventually, I cleared out of the space. I was told to think about vacating the space because I had not been able to pay my way in the space. I packed my shit up and the reaction was shock and I was told we could have worked something out.
What was reaffirmed for me was, my gaping wound for my mother I have to guard fiercely and not let just anyone with a mothering air in. And, I am the kind of person that says something and follows through. I was told to vacate the space, and thus I did.
