August

I don't like to make promises or say, "I promise". It creates an extreme obligation and I'd beat myself up over it not being fulfilled - no matter how reasonable the explanation. I think that comes from knowing how it feels to be disappointed. One of my earliest memories of disappointment was on a birthday I had as a kid. Sometime between first and fourth grade. I thought your birthday was when all of your friends came over and brought you gifts, sang 'Happy Birthday' to you and ate cake and ice cream (the Oxford comma can suck it). I thought you did that every year. One year it didn't happen and I didn't realize it wasn't going to until darkness began to fall. I remember it being nighttime that day. No sunlight. I was in the living room having it explained that they couldn't afford it that year. I got a card and a belt with the California Raisins on it. There may have been a candle on a cupcake or something, but maybe I'm just making that up or it's been dimmed by disappointment. 

                          On a birthday before or after that one (probably before) I invited all of my friends over without checking with my mom or stepfather. I got in trouble and was sent to my room. Later, when they called me downstairs all of my friends were at the kitchen table around a lit cake and started singing 'Happy Birthday'. My eyes watered and Dwayne shouted that I was crying. No, I wasn't! (Dwayne is also the dumbass who found a butcher knife in the bushes and threw it my way. It went just past the side of my head.)

(Please pardon the quality of the photos. My phone sucks.) I took it back to the sketchbook. I gave my computer a break after experiencing some slowdown. The pages are larger than my Wacom Bamboo so drawing was more comfortable. Just studies and doodles. 

    I think this was the same birthday that Anwar gave me a list of baseball players as a present. I think I was told to thank him for it and remember we were outside. I think he was a little embarrassed by it (?). I know how that feels. I got in trouble as an early teen for not saying 'happy birthday' to my mother one year. I was embarrassed because I had no gift for her. Anwar was enthusiastic about baseball. I didn't like the sport, but his energy kept me interested. No matter how shitty you think what you have to give is, if it comes from a deep, authentic part of you then the right people/person will appreciate it.
 

The similar looking faces were from a study, then from memory (covering the source image and part of the page where the study was drawn).

I wonder if my mother and stepfather felt embarrassed about the belt. With it being a belt I probably got beat with it in the future. Those gifts stand out a lot. I still don't like birthdays that much and think birthday cards are superficial. We outsource our feelings to writers of cards. But I'm empathetic enough to appreciate the intent behind it. As I mature, I'm finding it a little easier not to be a complete asshole. A little ... easier. 
 

Would you believe I was supposed to be focusing on cloth folds and wrinkles in this round of studying?

So where does that leave me now. Some time back, as a child and adolescent I visualized a certain type of life for myself. So much that I implicitly promised myself that I'd reach it. And I haven't. And it's been killing me. There are parts of me that need to die and I've been slaying them. But is it that part, too? That needs to go? That expects a different gift? Should I beat it with the California Raisin belt for having "unrealistic expectations"? Or keep working on the list of baseball players? 
 

I like to fill up the entire page so this is incomplete. More cloth, though.

 I don't know the answer. I just know the answer I've always had.