Cinderella Complicated
CINDERELLA COMPLICATED
It ain’t how you thought it would be.
My introspection these days hasn’t gotten quieter—it has gotten deeper. Yet the stillness I gain in my meditations isn’t soft ripples in a pond it’s more like ocean trench. There’s no peace in it. Just weightiness. A darkness that I feel.
For decades, I was simply surviving—and hoping. Hoping for some elusive some-thing, and believing that doing the work, staying true, being a free spirit was The Way. I didn’t need fame or money or social media strategies—or anything—to matter.
The art alone would be my echoed voice in this world,
and the art alone would be enough.
But now, suddenly, I want.
I want recognition. I want the comfort of monetary stability.
I want to be seen.
There’s something cruel about how, after decades of creating from a place of passion and defiant nonconformity—this is when the hunger shows up.
Not for praise, necessarily, but for proof.
Some kind of tangible confirmation that the path less taken wasn’t just a slow fade into obscurity.
And then comes the existential kick in the craw: Is the work enough? Or worse: The work is … mediocre.
Oh, God.
Dear Cinderella Complicated:
That voice—the one that says your art is mediocre—is a liar.
It wears the face of capitalism, aging, comparison, and fatigue.
It didn’t speak while you were immersed. It only emerged when you started looking over your shoulder at younger people being louder, shinier, and somehow everywhere.
But let’s be honest: You feel things—deeply, relentlessly, even though you don’t want to. You always have. That’s why mediocrity terrifies you. Because it would mean the work—the thing meant to hold your truth—just … stinks.
Not only undercrafted, but underimagined.
All that heat, nuance, wildness inside you—flattened into something forgettable.
And the wanting? That isn’t a flaw.
It’s just … finally admitting you’ve always wanted to be seen.
And deep down, you really believed the work alone would make that happen.
Instead, life happened.
Lovies,
You
