Running into myself as a young artist, I would see a person less confident, with smooth skin and no idea what the fuck she was headed for in life. I would smile kindly at her bright face and let her know that some part of her will always be those things but most of who she thought she was going to be, would morph into variations of that.
Looking back on life is like a fun house mirror at times with distortions of what we thought was going on at the time but viewed through the lens of hindsight, things appear quite different.
Losing my job at sixty and figuring out the job market did not want me, was a gut wrenching thing but it has turned out to be a wonderful thing. Along the way I realized that I can just finally be an artist. That’s all I ever really wanted to do but life required money to live and I sacrificed my art for that. Looking back, I may have taken some different paths but for the most part it all turned out OK. This phase of life has me feeling more content with who I am and the life I have made. That feels really nice. Aging is not what I thought it would be and I have learned to lean into it. I like being older and wiser much better than being a beautiful young thing. I really would not go back.
Carrie Lee Bartlett Art 
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