I made a risky decision a little over a year ago, at 40, to quit my job and switch careers. Working in publishing as an editor for over 15 years hadn't been particularly rewarding, and definitely not lucrative. I was okay at it, but not great, always a little clumsy with typos myself. I might have been better, but my heart wasn't in it. Life is too short I wagered to spend time doing something that just pays the bills. So I gave up stability, a cushy work-from-home position blissfully free from office politics, and over 5 weeks of paid vacation per year (pretty good by American standards!) to embark on the uncertainty of undergraduate life -- for the second time.
As the result of a semi-logical analysis of what I most liked to do: dream, draw, build, construct, analyze, and create -- ideally something beautiful -- I had settled on fashion design as my new path. The process of design is intriguing to me, because it encompasses all these aspects. The dreaming and drawing up of new ideas, the technical analysis of pattern making, the creative adventure of construction, and finally the realization of the original idea in 3D. The high that comes with the satisfaction of having created something successful out of many hours of labor and dedication is the best!
So I found myself back in school, surrounded by a bunch of surprisingly bright, fashion-savvy, and ambitious students who were literally half my age. I expected to find them as bumbling and uncertain as I had felt at nineteen or twenty, but found instead that they were poised, confident, focused, and articulate. My own confidence began to waver. What business did I have here, at my age, starting over and trying to compete with these kids who had a twenty-year head start and so much confidence?
Replaying my undergraduate years turned out to be much more challenging and humbling than I expected. The demands of full-time study, I remembered, are no joke. Full-time working-life in the "real world" didn't seem so taxing anymore. My leisurely evenings and weekends disappeared under mounds of homework (literally fabric scraps) and my authority as a "senior editor" morphed into the fledgling status of misfit student. The fine lines that had begun to settle near the corners of my eyes were no longer a sign of been-there, done-that. More like: what are you doing here?
Rediscovering my humility wasn't without its rewards. Many small stumbles and one particularly hurtful fall, when my term garment on which I had banked nearly all my energy for the final semester was not selected to be part of the student exhibition, prompted me to reevaluate my approach to the creative process, and discover that what was thwarting me was a drowning out of my own voice in an unreasonable attempt to please others. Ah ha! That's what these kids are so good at, I discovered: listening to their own voices. Perhaps too many years in a performance-review-driven corporate environment had hampered my ability to please myself first: something any creative person knows is essential for success.
So, here I am. Now a fashion school graduate at 40+, with a newfound sense of self, ready to start all over, yet again, as a Fashion Design Intern! More on that soon. In the meantime, here are a few photos of my term garment, a reward for me if nobody else. I look forward to interacting with you all, especially those of you who are creatively inclined, on Steemit.
-TL
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