im still here damnit

hello out there in deviantartland to anyone that might be left listening. I haven't been the most attentive or interactive, or even productive member for awhile now. I still haunt the place-- and luckily have been selling more and more prints.. so to whoever out there keeps buying my stuff-- especially the big prints-- I thank you very much.

I haven't been around because somewhere somehow.. i lost confidence in myself as an artist... or maybe just in myself altogether. Im still trying to sort it out.

this last year and a half has taken a great emotional toll on me and it's left me feeling very lost. I didn't make a big deal out of the fact that almost a year ago i was very close to being dead.
I had ignored some symptoms and issues with my health and it unfortunately progressed to renal failure. So I was very close to being dead-- my potassium levels were quite high, i was retaining a ton of fluid and was bloated, i ran out breath just walking across the room-- due to a very low red blood cell count.. the kidneys release a hormone that tells the bones to do their thing and make more blood-- and when you are in renal failure and it's going untreated.. well your red blood cell count drops. a lot. like dangerously low.

So fast forward almost a year.. luckily i am in good health apart from renal failure. I now have to go to dialysis 3 days a week each treatment lasts 4hrs15minutes.  I start at 5:30 a.m. I am on a transplant list waiting for a kidney-- I do however have a friend who has my same blood type that has offered their one of their kidneys to me.  I haven't taken her up on the offer yet. She would have to go get tested to see if we are a match.  Part of me is afraid to find out. If she isn't a match the average wait for a kidney is around 3 years. The other part of me is afraid of the operation itself.. now im lucky enough to live in a city that pioneered this type of surgery and Pittsburgh's organ transplant center is one of the best in the country...but the surgery and recovery time scare me. I guess it's only natural to feel that way... but I just can't get past it.

So why am i writing about all this.. because with everything that has happened.. it has somehow deadened my creative spirit. I keep trying to reconnect to it.. to feel creative again.. but i don't.
I feel empty.
I feel drained (which isnt surprising since 3 days a week my blood is drained, cleaned, and put back)
I have so much anger inside me.... I miss my old life.  
So much has been stripped away this last year and half... my health started to deteriorate right after I moved to New Orleans....I couldn't find a job... I had to move back leaving my two closest friends down in New Orleans.

It doesn't help that the majority of people on dialysis are senior citizens and that I am one of the youngest dialysis patients in the clinic-- so im surrounded by a lot of people in worse shape than I am.

im going all over the place again. I just don't know anymore. I miss making art.
you would think I would feel happy to still be alive-- and I do.. and am. But it's had such a big effect on my life.. i need to find purpose again.
I have none.
that's really what this all boils down to.. is a lack of purpose or direction.
something or someone to fill up the emptiness.


peace.

-greg-