Letter to Myself: from 2023 to 2022
Dear Laura from March 2022,
How’s it going? It’s lovely here in the future. It’s currently May 2023 and it’s starting to get sunnier in Glasgow, much to my skin’s despair.
Oh blimey, you won’t know yet: we moved back to Glasgow! I know, you had NO idea back then that that would happen. You’re probably still trying to get the Helensburgh jigsaw pieces to fit, spinning them and pressing them hard, trying to get that picture of the “quieter, more rural life” to fit. But you don’t know that’s what you’re doing yet. It’ll be another six months before the penny finally drops.
Credit where credit’s due: running in Helensburgh was pretty awesome.
I know what you’re thinking: ‘But I don’t think I have another move in me!’ Spoiler alert: you do. And it has been tough. You’ll realise at some point in the winter that you’re someone who is really affected by the environment you work in, and not having a solid home base is difficult. But you’ll also come to realise that it’s the best decision you – as an individual and with David – have ever made.
You’ll change a lot in the next year and a bit. The Pod has a lot to do with that. You’re only a couple of months in right now, but you’re probably feeling a difference already. Who knew that spending a lot of time with very awesome, very like-minded people is good for you? They inspire you, nudge you forward, challenge you and support you, as you change and evolve and go through all the crunchy bits. And you do the same for them. You don’t know it yet, but this is the most you’ll ever feel like you’ve ‘belonged’.
I wish the Pod could be bottled and given to every freelancer. Eau de Pod.
Hmm, what else? Oh! We have a desk at the Whisky Bond now. I KNOW RIGHT. I think where you are in March ‘22 you’ve only just started thinking about renting a space in Helensburgh. Working from home is proving tricky. JUST WAIT until you see where you end up (hint: it’s pretty spooky – you’ll love it).
It doesn’t look spooky here, but check out your Instagram highlight called “Spooky Office 👻”
The Whisky Bond is awesome. I remember years ago as though I wasn’t “cool enough” to work there 🙄 I roll my eyes at that now, but that’s how we felt for a long time. It’s OK though, this is finally the year when all that bullshit starts to fall away.
Sketchbooking and embracing messiness are some big changes here in the future too. I can’t remember what actually prompted it, but a few months ago we gently started dabbling in drawing a little more. I was careful not to put too much pressure on it, I just watched how it felt and where it naturally took us. And it feels good.
I think you’ll be quite surprised to hear that. Where you are, sketchbooking and drawing still feel a bit big and scary – something to get “right”. Massive perfection paralysis. It’s OK though, you’ll see soon enough what I’m talking about.
Embracing the messiness is bloody awesome. Let’s be honest: we are naturally a very messy person (mum would definitely agree with that!) But weirdly, when it comes to drawing or painting, we’ve always been oddly mess-averse. That whole ‘I’ve got to get it right first time’ thing. I’m still pondering where that came from, but I suspect it’s something to do with Instagram: seeing all the beautiful final pieces of professional artists has unconsciously led us to believe that that’s what we should be aiming for, first time, every time.
Lovely, lovely messiness.
Logically you and I know that they will have put the hours in, and have hundreds of truly ropey sketches and drafts behind the camera. But we don’t KNOW it yet, if you see what I mean. It takes another few months for that nugget to finally land. But now that it has? There’s no stopping us.
I bought a really cheapy sketchbook from Cass Art a few weeks ago, and we’ve nearly filled it. I KNOW! It’s chock-full of roughs, and lines, and marks, and mess, and paint, and ideas, and thumbnails, and some REALLY ropey sketches. Who’da thunk it? Certainly not you in ‘22 anyway.
Oh, not so fun thing: Covid finally gets us, the bitch. The actual symptoms weren’t too bad, but our energy did disappear for a while. It wasn’t all bad though – we got through a lot of Frasier, and did some sketchbooking too. (Also don’t be too alarmed, but you’ll also get Norovirus not long before Covid. February-April 2023 is a bit rough).
Oh man, you still have The Artist’s Way to come! You’ll suddenly decide to start that next month, and it’ll change everything. You do the morning pages for a good long while too. We’re not doing them at the moment – the upheaval of the move has kiboshed that for now – but it’s something we might come back to in future. I’m so jealous you’ve still got that to come, like someone who’d not seen a brilliant TV show yet. Oh and you’ll LOVE the Artist Dates. One thing: there’s a lot of God stuff in the book, but it’s easy to ignore all that.
We take an Artist Date to Mull and chose a LOVELY day for it.
You’ll be glad to hear that we find pricing a little easier now, AND we raised our rates. On top of that, we also feel – very deeply – that those rates are justified. No guilt, no apologetic pricing, no discounting unnecessarily. Don’t get me wrong, pricing is still tricky. But there’s less emotional baggage surrounding it now, which is VERY nice.
You know how we’ve always known we love print design, but we’ve never really fully leaned into it? There’s a small task you’ll do in about a year's time where it’ll finally become clear: we are a print designer. It feels well good to say that. Oh oh AND we’ll start calling ourselves an ‘arty graphic designer’ too. It’s a touch cheesy, but feels right doesn’t it?
We’re just a bit more chilled out in general now. Things don’t feel so… serious. Or strict. We’ve given ourselves more freedom – more permission to embrace what’s inside. Things flow more easily. We tackle the limiting beliefs and it pays off. A lot of this has to do with deciding to move back to Glasgow. Like I said: a tough but very good decision.
So to sum up: 2022 is a tough year in some ways, but also one of the best so far. Pretty much all the tough stuff has led to better things here in 2023. And you’ll be glad you went through it all. It’s like Hazel said: you don’t know what you don’t know. So you have to go through the stuff to know, y’know? As they say, ‘the best way out is through’.
May 2023.
Let’s keep going.
All the best,
Laura from the Future x
