I told my parents I wanted to be an artist when I was in my early teens. My mom was silent on the subject, but my dad let me know what he thought. “You can’t earn a living as an artist,” he said.

Some part of me abandoned the artist who lives inside me that day. I got on the merry-go-round that’s life.

I went to college, got married, divorced, and married again, raised three children, earned a degree in writing, worked as a florist, an illustrator, and then an editor in publishing.

I didn’t paint.

I went back to school and earned a master’s degree in education. I love to learn, but I was really motivated to understand why most people hate what they do and often dislike who they work for. I wanted to know why people tolerate a patriarchal system that requires them to do what they’re told to do, what is expected, every day of their working lives.

We have to make decisions every day about how to be in this world. We experience heartache and shocks to our being—to who we are—because we live. And we often wonder if it’s worth it to resist the current. It often seems easier to do what is expected of us, to ride the merry-go-round, but is it?

Today, I paint. I’m learning to look at the joyful things in life and my still unfinished life gets better.