It’s been a while on here and whole seasons have passed. Life changes so quickly.
I’ve been in my new house for almost a year now. 2022 was an incredibly busy year and I’ve been teetering on the edge of burning out since but somehow I still keep going. I feel like I’m always going to be riding that razer’s edge, trying to maintain some sort of balance but it never quite sticks. My brain wants to keep going even when my body is trailing behind.
I struggle with being a “public figure” and being known, feeling uncomfortable in my skin and the attention. There are so many things people know me for. Art, Oddities, tattooing, and now the new business. I want the things I do to be known but would like to stay in the darkness, not liking everything I do being analyzed and having weight to my words. But somehow I got dragged out there and I’m almost an attraction myself. My family jokes about me being a “local celebrity” and I cringe away every time.
I don’t like Sam being perceived.
There’s a reason why I’ve gone by Raicodoll for so long and not by my name. I liked the anonymity, the mask, and I feel naked now that people are seeing me. I’ve never associated myself with my name but these days I feel more like Raicodoll than Sam. Nothing quite feels right anymore though.
From last August to now, I’ve helped put on another two Oddities Art Markets and am currently working on another. I organized a Goblin Market, popups, events, a book nook exhibit, Tumbleweed + Sage closing, Pride, dealt with an injured dog (multiple times), dealt with my own health, and have started a tattoo apprenticeship. I’ve been apprenticing for 6 months now. It doesn’t feel like it.
We also started a whole ass business. I contemplate leaving my day job every day. The edge is right there and I can leap. It’ll be hard but maybe I’ll be happier. Money is an anchor I’ve never agreed to.
I’m tired, but there are things in the horizon I’m excited for and it’s helping me to eek my way towards the finish line. Once I reach it, I’ll make a new finish line. It keeps me going, keeps me living, keeps me from jumping off a different ledge.
I’ve gained new friends and expanded the community, cut ties, set boundaries, and have had to make decisions that were hard but I knew were for the best. I am still me. I am confident and stubborn and an enforcer when people treat my friends badly but unable to defend myself. I’ll take the hits so someone doesn’t have to.
I turned 32. It’s a big number and I don’t quite feel like I’ve been alive for that long, but I’m realizing I hardly feel like myself anymore. My name feels disconnected from who I am. I’m a jumble of experiences held together in skin, a multitude of stories I’ve written and characters that have lived in my head for years and on paper but none of them are me. I’m Raicodoll, I’m Viola, I’m Dahlia, I’m Red, I’m different characters and lives but Sam doesn’t feel like a person to me.
So I keep busy to distract myself.
I recently did an episode of a podcast with the local PBS station (I’m pretty sure it got scrapped but maybe one day it’ll come out) and talked all about me, which was weird. It was about my history and what I do. Not about the events I was putting on or a project, but about me as a “public figure.” They asked who my mentors and heroes were and I was stumped because I never had anyone properly teach me, only encourage. But I thought of my grandma, a blip of reality reminding me that she’s gone (my brain loves to forget that fact), and I cried unexpectedly during the recording because she was the main person that inspired me. She passed away in December. I didn’t get to have the Christmas I wanted to give her.
I try not to think about it too much because I think the grief would eat me alive. I dealt with two deaths this Winter, both sudden, and I’ve had to patch the holes it left in me. I’ve never been good at death, which is ironic considering the types of things I love. I still haven’t visited my aunt’s grave years later because that hole is scotch taped together and so fragile. Her memorial anniversary is coming up next month and I’m tattooing dragonflies on all her kids. There were flocks of them at the cemetary when she was buried.
I grew up unable to deal with emotions, everyone shutting them away and being told to stay strong which was code for “hide it away, it’s a weakness”. Don’t cry. Suck it up. Don’t show you’re affected.
I’ve become a crier as I got older, that tightly corked bottle from my life leaking everywhere. Slowly shattering with age.
I play my grandma’s voicemail often. Her phone number is still #1 on my favorites list. It hurts everyday.
I’m always trying to find new ways to do things. When you become complacent, you stagnate and I never want that. If I get too comfortable, then I won’t grow. I did over 30 events last year. So I switched gears. Focused on how to change up the market.
I’ve always been nervous to try tattooing. I’m soft and the tattoo culture can be brutal. But I have good friends who encouraged me and offered to teach me and so 6 months ago I officially became an apprentice. I’ve been terrified to mess up, the perfectionist in me rearing it’s head and reminding me that tattoos are permanent. But It’s been fun to pick up and learn. It’s so similar to ink painting, but in a different way. I’ve tattooed so many people now I’ve lost count
I started a motherfucking Meow Wolf in Lubbock. Except it’s not Meow Wolf but explaining an interactive art installation exhibit is hard when people don’t understand the concept or have never seen it. It’s an actual business with legal stuff and graphics and a website and we’re fundraising and hiring people.
This is what I’ve always wanted. This is what I dreamed of. And it’s hard. So fucking hard. There’s so much money involved and processes and it’s not like there’s a guide book for this type of business so we’re building it from the ground up. I want to leave my job so badly. Go full time, make art, do tattoos, skate on my retirement for a little bit so I can focus on building this massive beautiful thing.
Its at the edge of my fingertips.
I try to give myself breaks. I’m writing again, getting back into the fandoms I use to love, getting friends online. People that don’t know my everyday life but know my characters and my stories and I’ve never had people so eager for me to write more. I get to slip into someone else’s skin for a while and not be me.
This me is a mix of the old version of me and a new one, an older one with a lot more experience but fresh ideas and motivations. I’m learning my brand is just me and everything I do and love. It’s mostly just trying to accept it myself. I never thought I’d have to market myself but that’s the world of today.
I’m tired. I’m motivated. I’m so close to everything I want.
The seasons keep changing.
-Sam <3