Sunday December 28, 2025
Regulation is Rebellion
Confronting workaholism on my first trip to the ocean
This summer I did something I haven’t done since joining the work force ten years ago…I took a weeklong vacation!
From the very end of August through the week of Labor Day, my boyfriend’s family and I rented a house on Topsail Beach in North Carolina.
I was so excited but also having somewhat of an existential crisis (no thanks to being days away from my period). Now was my chance to have a week away from chores, my job, daily texting correspondence, Instagram, and all the other obligations and busyness that I use to distract myself from sitting down to draw and paint. As the day we drove down approached, I could feel the pressure building inside like a tea kettle.
I wasn’t expecting this blog to take a vulnerable turn. I don’t usually share about my inner experience in relation to making art. “It’s more professional to leave the messy emotional crap out” says that voice in my head. But I feel hope that sharing this will be helpful for others who’ve lived similar experiences and help unburden myself.
To keep it as short as I can: Whether I have OCD, perfectionism, or a different diagnosis I don’t know. But starting at a young age, I derived a lot of my sense of worth and security from doing well in school and being productive. Looking back, I can see that I was very afraid of failure or being forgotten about. I excelled in school, getting straight A’s all the way through college. After graduating with honors and scholarships, I moved back home with my parents. I felt the weight of new financial responsibilities and didn’t have a clear path forward. All I knew was that I was desperate to become independent from my parents, find love, and be successful (i.e., continually recognized by my peers…i.e., to not be forgotten about). The treadmill of work became my escape from the stories I was telling myself about not living up to my potential. I fell into an emotional hole.
Even though I didn’t stop making art (these are the years where I dove into marbling and bookmaking), I didn’t know how to get my joy back. Art became something I was supposed to do and brought me more stress, and I resented it. And I felt shame for resenting something I used to love so much.
Over the past years of reflection and emotional work, I’ve become aware of my old patterns and am doing better at catching myself when I’m making art from a stressed, compulsive energy rather than a state of relaxed curiosity.
When faced with the openness of an entire week to do nothing BUT relax, my survival brain was going into overdrive.
“You have to make the most of it.”
“Optimize your leisure time.”
These are phrases I hear echoing in the back of my head often.
I’m not saying that I was able to let myself off the hook the whole time, but this vacation was an opportunity to confront and converse with parts of me that DON’T KNOW HOW to ACTUALLY relax. Not fake relax (doing something restorative because it’s good for me in order to continue go, go, going). But to relax in the deepest sense that I can let me guard down completely and trust that I’m okay to play, even if it’s “unproductive.”
I heard the phrase recently: “Regulation is rebellion.” Yes it is.
Supplies:
Canson 9 x 12 inch spiral-bound 140 lb. watercolor sketchbook - I’ve been exclusively into case-bound sketchbooks since high school, but working in this one opened my eyes to how nice it can be having a page lay totally flat.
A Portable Painter watercolor set - A birthday present to myself, lovingly filled the day before the trip
Pentel Fude Pocket Brush Pen - Received this as a gift from a coworker several years ago, and I fell in love with it on this vacation.
A 1/2” synthetic flat brush and a #8 round brush, mostly - Not pictured
I loved being on the beach under the tent. I was having fun drawing our neighbors who were engrossed in their own world, people taking beachy naps.
It turns out that you can use seawater to do watercolors, and it doesn’t have any effect on the painting!
Lots of playing around with materials and swatches!
We went to a nature reserve for carnivorous plants. Even though this drawing wasn’t as refined as some of the others, I enjoy seeing the watercolor blooms.
Drawing is an aid to memory, even better than writing to me. When I draw something, I’m translating the way I feel it and perceive it.
Sometimes I went back over my paintings with a white gel pen to add texture and detail like the bucket handle.
On the second to last day of the trip, we went deep-sea fishing. I was getting a little queasy from the smell of boat exhaust and the motion, so I invented some fish.
“Yes, as everyone knows, meditation and water are wedded for ever.”