Sometimes it’s the little things that get you going
When I first started pottery, I was in middle school. It was one of those art lessons every kid in Ontario, or at least what I like to believe, goes through. You pay $20 for an instructor to come to your art room and teach you how to do basic pottery. At first, I thought it was boring, which is funny, because I have always been an arts student.
My current field of study is in the department of liberal arts. I grew up painting and drawing.
In high school, I took art for four years because I wanted to go into animation, but soon I quit because I thought I wasn’t good enough.
But, who knew I would pick up this passion again? If you haven’t read my articles, I always stress that while growing up, life takes things from you. Sometimes it’s joy, sometimes it’s the people you love and other times it’s learning lessons you encounter. Needless to say, all this does take a toll on mental health and, unfortunately, I have been a victim of this –– and still am. My therapist would say I’m a work in progress, waiting to become better.
From 2022 onward, I became more depressed than a better version of myself. My emotions control me more than they should; I am super sensitive and not many people know this. I try to be extroverted, outgoing and funny because deep down I don’t want to seem like a quiet loser with no personality. But, the truth is, I am a quiet loser –– or that’s what my depression says.
I wish was better, that I wasn’t lazy and everybody loved me.
I wish I was ahead of life and had things planned out, like everybody.
I wish I had a huge group of friends.
I wish I was different or someone who fits in easily like a puzzle that doesn’t need to be solved.
I wish I wasn’t me.
These thoughts eat me up at night, but somehow, it’s the little things that motivate you to wake up and find a purpose.
To make it through one day,
One hour,
One minute,
One second at a time.
And that’s how I rediscovered my boring middle school class activity and gave it another chance. After all, I have given my failed talking stages countless chances, but never for myself and this time, I deserved to put myself first; to do something productive rather than rot in my own thoughts.
Now that I am 22 –– and maybe it’s the “unc” in me talking–– pottery and clay are fun and creative. You get one packet of clay at the dollar store for less than three bucks, turn on a podcast and three hours will fly away so fast you don’t even notice.
I don’t know what it is about pottery and clay I love, but it has helped me get up from my bed, make a Pinterest board of all the designs I want to make and calm me down for however long my project is. I think it’s the adrenaline of rediscovering something and realizing it was never gone in the first place. Pottery didn’t magically fix me or silence every thought in my head, but it gave me space. Space to breathe, to focus on something small, feel present, and to prove to myself that I could still create something beautiful even when I didn’t feel beautiful from the inside.
Clay is forgiving in a way that people, and sometimes even we ourselves, are not. You can mess it up, reshape it, start over, press it back together, and try again. Nothing about it has to be perfect. It just has to exist.
And maybe that’s the lesson I needed all along. So no, I don’t think that middle school pottery lesson was boring anymore. I think it was the first time I learned that even when things fall apart, you can still make something out of what’s left.
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