Losing my Abilities

Morning my lovelys!~
     So, in this post I'm going to be discussing part of what has being happening to me lately.  It is also partly the reason where all I've felt like doing with my life is eating, working out and then crawling right back into bed, in the dark, all  alone.

     Over the years, I've always been known for my artistic abilities.  My skills in drawing, painting, creating, even a little sculpting.  I had intuitive knowledge of proportion/anatomy and a good general sense of movement in a still drawing before I began taking formal art classes in college.  I rarely ever had a blank phase, or severe artists block.  Somehow I always found a way out of the rut, and got back to doing what I loved.
     After completing my second year of college, I noticed an emptiness inside that I had never noticed before.  Being so caught up with the technical aspects of my course, I knew that something had pulled away or had become over shadowed.  A spark was missing.  The Life Drawing classes I did so well at suddenly turned my imagination into something completely opposite of what it has ever been....something dead.  My emotional turmoil became something superficial.  I held on to the notion that my drawing was something that made me who I was, and that losing it or having it change into something that I feared; it was like a part of my being was being taken away, like I wouldn't be known as who I previously was, "Theresa, the girl who is always drawing".  It was a shallow explanation of what was really going on, and a very inaccurate one, too.
     I spent a long time on Skype last night with a good friend of mine who I got to know by having classes together.  I see him as a great novice artist who's paintings and compositions basically never disappointed anyone, except maybe someone who is a professional, and even then I think they would only give good-hearted constructive criticism. I saw my friend as the best person to talk to, seeing as he was pretty much the best painter in our year group.  It was one of the best conversations about art I've ever had and he did a very good job at encouraging me and giving truth to my real situation.
     As an artist himself, he has had his ruts and his imaginative blocks, and times where nothing he does seems to look good or up to the expectations he has made for himself.  This is a normal thing to happen with artists.  But the thing that he said that really stuck with me was when he brought out the idea that perhaps my mind has moved too far beyond my physical skill.  My taste in art and composition has become so professional and well....tasteful, that my body has failed to keep up at this point, and that it's now up to me to go through that push that all professional artists go through, and practise harder than I ever had to balance both mind and body in my art work.  It almost made me cry because then I knew it was true.
     I had learned to observe the technicality and workings of good art so well, that my own personal expectations had gone so far beyond what I even knew how to do.  Now.....now I am on a mission to surround myself with my goals so I can reach them, and even maybe exceed these expectations and step into "professional land", according to my friend.  Make time to learn what I can, as aggressively as I can and things will tie together into something beautiful.
     These are all very new feelings for me.  But I think I can get through this.  I have nothing to lose and the only thing I can gain is being a better artist at the end of it all.  Life Drawing and immersing myself into 3D art had not taken anything away, it only gave me new tools to take the next step in my creative journey.

I know some parts of this post were a bit depressing, and you might be thinking "Ugh....artists...".  But if you're not, and maybe an artist yourself, or going through something similar with another skill you have, I hope it was encouraging.  Don't give up!