On the day of college graduation, I packed up my dorm and my art studio, tossed into my back seat only the items that didn’t hinder my rear view, and peeled out of campus in my ‘92 Sentra the way I did in the Taco Bell parking lot in high school. I left behind a few lopsided Ikea dressers and a large painting on masonite that, in its “idea” stage, I envisioned as a Bonnard-like masterpiece, but it resolved itself as a dead end. No matter—it was New York City or bust.

Weeks later, I received a call from our college art librarian, claiming that she had found the discarded painting in my studio and wanted to purchase it. I was about to make my very first sale, but it was nothing like I had pictured. No crowd of black-clad beatniks admiring my creation, no svelte woman in horn-rimmed glasses trying to decipher every cryptic layer, no red dot sticker to place on the painting after the check was signed. I was going to sell my first work, and it was going to be exhumed from the trash.

To my surprise and delight, the librarian sent the payment soon after our phone conversation and forwarded pictures and updates as if the painting was my child that she had adopted. Even unframed and haphazardly propped against a colored wall, the work looked…well, legit.

This evening, I came home from my job at an art museum—which has drained me of any desire to paint because hell, I’m not Kandinsky—to a Facebook message from that librarian announcing that she had finally framed my art. I don’t know what to call this feeling, but I do know that it makes me want to make stuff again.

via pbj4life and karenanneglick