I know I’m not the only one who does this. We wait for the perfect time, the perfect plan, the perfect product. Well, after 27 years of chasing perfect, I’m here to tell you: I don’t think it exists. And looking for it has only left me spinning in circles and, if I’m being honest, deeply self-critical.

This is what I love about art. The way the paintbrush glides across the canvas, the way colors dance together. My hand may hold the brush, but ultimately, the paint goes where it wants to go. Some of my pieces turn out exactly as I’d hope, satisfyingly cohesive and aesthetic. Others go nothing like I planned. Those are the ones I need most. They’re the ones that loosen my grip on control, on perfection.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve loved to create. As a little girl, I sat in front of the TV watching my favorite show Cake Boss (I had a crush on Buddy, don’t judge), a tub of Play-Doh in front of me, pretending it was fondant. I made bracelets, I colored, I painted, I did it all. I think that’s when I first experienced flow. I drifted from it as I grew older, until I moved to New York and picked up a paintbrush again to paint a canvas for my new apartment. That one piece cracked something back open in me.

It turned into what I do now: hand-painted taper and pillar candles. I started an art Instagram account where I post my work here and there, nothing too serious. I called it my “side project,” my “little art business,” as if shrinking it made it safer to share. I’m done with that.

I have found myself in the blessing and the curse of being an ambitious girl in her 20s in New York City. I’m surrounded by people chasing their dreams, starting businesses, hopping on planes to somewhere new what seems like daily. Every other person on social media is growing their following and building a brand. I’d think, “I want to do all of that too!” But then I never do it. Not because I didn’t want it badly enough, but because I was waiting to become the version of myself I imagined I’d be before I started.

This year, I’m done waiting. The only right time is the one right in front of me.

I decided I wanted to take my art more seriously. Build a website. Get it into boutiques around the city. And almost immediately, the thoughts started flooding in. Is my work even good enough? I don’t have enough time for this. Then one day, I thought, fuck it. I’m just going to walk into a boutique, introduce myself, show them my work and see what happens. What am I waiting for?

I pulled together a few designs and samples, and threw together a line sheet in Canva (Thanks, Claude, for teaching me what actually belongs on a line sheet). I hopped on the subway, walked into a boutique with a smile, and introduced myself.

I had no rehearsed pitch, no real plan. I just went up to the owner, struck up a genuine conversation about himself and his shop, and then told him about my work and asked if I could show him some samples. And amazingly, but I suppose not at all surprisingly, he wanted to carry my pieces. It was exactly the kind of curated shop I’d been envisioning them in for months.

I almost didn’t go in at all.

I’d had the line sheet sitting in my drafts for weeks. I kept opening it, tweaking a font, second-guessing a price, then just closing the laptop. I told myself I’d go in once it felt right. Once I had my final logo. Once the website was live. That morning I almost talked myself out of it one more time. Then I got on the subway before I could change my mind.

Here’s the irony. I never even pulled up my line sheet. He didn’t ask for it, didn’t ask me to email it once I got home. And that’s the part that had been holding me back for so long. The line sheet wasn’t “perfect.” I didn’t have a real logo or a website. But there I was, making it happen, getting the yes, with a brand that was still very much in progress.

What would have happened if I’d let that stop me? If I’d stayed home waiting for things to be perfect, which would probably have meant waiting forever, instead of stepping into the arena and just getting feedback?

He could have said no, the pieces aren’t for me, the branding isn’t there yet. But even then, I would have walked away with something real: actual feedback, not the imagined kind I’d been rehearsing in my head for months. I would have gone back, iterated, and tried again. Either outcome moves you forward. Staying home moves you nowhere.

Sometimes I still get so flooded with ideas that I don’t know where to start. So I don’t start. The distance between here and the life I’m picturing feels too big to cross, so I never take the first step.

But as one of my favorite quotes by Rumi goes,

So here I am, putting one foot in front of the other, and writing it all down as I go.

Or, well. Fingers to a keyboard.

If you’re in the middle of your own something, I hope you’ll come along.

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