fall down seven times, get up eight

...Except sometimes it's really more like, "Fall down seven times, cry a little, eat some comfort food,  take a shower, get some sleep, then get up eight."

Nobody showed up to the Portrait Day event I hosted with Next Stop Kids Shop. Not a single person. Those same feelings of imposter syndrome that crept up on me in my first semester of art school are back. I remember wandering the aisles of Utrecht, looking at a lot of the things I knew I needed but was too overwhelmed to buy. Being eighteen, on my own for the first time, armed with supply lists for three classes and not a lot of cash was my first glimpse into this messy life milestone called "Adulthood."

I don't know how to use any of this stuff!

I am a fraud for not knowing paper types or how to draw.

Savannah and art school and those days when my life revolved around charcoal drawings and art history flashcards feel so far removed from me now. Clumsily lugging giant portfolios of unused drawing pads on and off SCAD buses, hanging out on Smoker's Bridge, and Sub Shoppe Tuesdays belong to another Anna. But the imposter syndrome feels like pulling out your favorite winter coat from storage. Wrapping its warmth around you feels familiar, like a hug from your favorite relative you only see at holidays.

If nobody will pay $20 for my pictures, who the hell is going to hire me for a wedding?

The only promise you can get out of working for yourself is that it will be a lot of work. You have to have the strength to pick yourself up when you inevitably fall. Dust yourself off. Fake it til you make it through the imposter syndrome and impending anxiety about what you're going to do next. Sit down and reevaluate. Write down why you are doing this and who you are doing this for. Make a plan from there. And when that plan stops working, do it again. And again. And again.