“This project is a self portrait that helped me acknowledge and deal with a certain stress that I have been internalizing for years.”

“Growing up Mormon, I was raised to believe that nothing is more important than family and from a young age I dreamt of the day I would start my own. As I got into high school this desire became more intense but I started to have conflicting desires that would ultimately delay my goal of starting a family! Making the decision to move away from my conservative state meant putting my most cherished goals on the back burner for possibly quite some time. I did just that and I love the life I have in New York City. However I constantly look back and question if I made the wrong choice. Often my heart aches knowing that if I had stayed I might not be so lonely. This project was born out of the anxiety I feel from all my friends and even my 19 year old sister getting married and starting this life I’ve desired for so long when I’m so far behind and so far away. This is not to say that I don’t enjoy the life I have but rather to demonstrate the push and pull I feel between the many lives I want for myself and the struggle and pressure I feel to choose the right one. 

I fell into a deep depression the summer after my first year of college when a boy I put my trust in, raped me and told me it was just a miscommunication when he found out I went to the police. They believed him. I slowly was able to gain back control over my life through many hours of therapy, but it continues to affect me to this day. My depression fell deeper as my anxiety grew while I witnessed everyone from my hometown getting married and I started to continually question if I was in the right place, doing the right thing. In December, my 19 year old sister called me to tell me that she had gotten engaged to a boy she had just started dating in September. A boy I'd never met or even really heard anything about because I was so far away. Everything in me shattered for so many different reasons but mainly because of jealousy. I was the most depressed I had ever been. I put my pain and sorrow into my work and decided to make a piece not only to show how I was feeling at this time in my life but also to help me process and give myself a way to work through the pain. It worked. I began to understand what I was feeling and why. 

When I had to come home because of COVID-19, I was sure I would fall back into that depression. But being back home and realizing that I wasn't really missing all that much was a huge help for me. When my sister got married two weeks ago, it hit me that I am not ready to be married. I am far too you and far too talented and, although, these are still things I want in my future, I am ok with setting them aside. I want to focus on my life and what I have ahead of me, rather than constantly looking to the people I decided to leave behind and comparing myself to them. 

This work is about putting aside a dream I've always had for a dream that is more important to me right now and being ok with doing that. “

By Georgia Raddon (May 1, 2020)