I'm reminded of a conversation i had with one of my professors in his office, and we were talking about what direction my body of work would go in. He was doing a manditory senior assessment, because it was the year I was set to graduate with my bachelors.
I had felt a lot of pressure to have some sort of profound statement, or to speak about some topic all through my time taking classes beyond freshman year. But, I felt like I didn't have anything to say yet. And if I did, it would reveal more about myself than what I was ready to discuss with others. That's a major difficulty I had with art. [ I talked about this with him at some point, too. ]
I know they were encouraging us to think and all, to not just make things that are beautiful, but to have conversations about the world and reality, but I felt somewhat out of the right head space, because all of my graduating peers were 28-30. I just was not, and could not make myself be there yet.
I told him outright, hey, "I'm only 22, so I don't know what I'll be exploring in five or even ten years time". I don't know what to talk about, because I just barely arrived at adulthood. I was still a juvenile adult.
I can say as I'm mere days away from 30, that I and 22 year old me, are not the same person. I've gotten to be an adult for a while, and now I DO know what my art is about and what I have to say.
So have some grace for the 'adult children'.