Last Year

Last year.

Last year a good man died far too young.
My kids lost their dad.
I lost my friend and husband.
We lost our way.

Last year, I spent more days crying than not.  I spent more time with my babies clinging to me, scared that I too would die if they let me go for even a moment.

Last year, I learned who my real friends are; those people I can truly count on when the chips are down.  I learned who will have my back and keep me going, no matter what.

Last year, I learned who I should never count on, and while that list may have been bigger than I wanted, it was in no way surprising.  A tiger never changes its stripes. And as Maya Angelou said, "When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time."

Last year, everything I knew changed and we had to figure out how to right our ship and get back on course.

This has not been an easy journey.  I am plagued with self doubt at almost every turn.  There are those who want to throw shade at me and add their voice to the already deafening chorus telling me that I can't do it and that I am a bleeping failure.

There have been some really dark moments in the last twelve months.

There came a point where I thought it would consume me.  There came a point where I realized that if I didn't do something, I would never climb out of the darkness.  If I didn't make a move, all of those negative voices would be right about me, and I would be a true failure.  If I didn't change something, my kids would lose their mother too.

Something had to give.

I knew I needed to start small.  I began putting on make-up every day.  This might not seem like much, but for me it was monumental.  I forced myself to take time every single morning to make myself look presentable.  Hair, make-up, clothes.  I took time to make sure that I looked like I cared.  After a few weeks I actually started to.

I started to watch what I was eating.  I had spent several months eating my feelings and my waistline (always bigger than average) really ballooned.  Weight started coming back off and I started to feel lighter.  

But I was still empty.

I still looked through the things around me.  I still focused past the mirror.  I still felt lost.

Going through the motions without any real feeling behind them is how I imagine a zombie to be.  There is form, but no substance.  I was a shell of who I should be. There was nothing me about this body any more.

I was cleaning out my closet, trying to organize myself back into being.  I was throwing out everything that I felt was weighing me down, trying to brighten my physical space if I could not brighten my mind.

There was a box of art supplies on the shelf.  I used to draw, I remembered.  I used to paint and create and make beautiful things.  I used to love it.  Used to.

I picked up a paintbrush and turned it over and over in my hand.  I knew I should get rid of it.  This was part of the old me, the me who could see beauty in a discarded bunch of junk.  This brush represented the me that was before.  I was different now.  

Wasn't I?

I put the brush in my pocket, set the box of supplies aside and went on with my day.  

A few hours later I unearthed a canvas.

The blank white surface was staring at me, taunting me.  I brushed it off and moved to put it in the box of junk that would be leaving to the thrift shop later.

I felt the brush vibrate in my pocket.  It would not be leaving, and neither would the canvas.

That canvas which had been sitting in my closet for who knows how long, called me.  I dusted off my tubes of acrylic paints, sat down at the table, and pulled the brush out of my pocket. I didn't sketch, I didn't plan, I just did what felt natural.

I played with color and light and let all of the things that were eating away at my heart flow out of me though my fingers and into the bristles of that brush.  I poured my sadness out onto the canvas.  I let it all go, crying real tears as I did, letting all of the dark out, turning on the light for the first time in months.

I sat at my dining room table that Saturday and I declared war on the grief in my soul. I let it out. I shouted it down.  It fought back and I held my ground.

I won that battle.

Sorrow, acrylics on canvas.

This is my grief raw and naked, made manifest on a canvas.  She cries, yes, but her tears are of gold.  Even they can be beautiful.  Even they can have value.

She is beautiful.
She is real.
She is my salvation.

Art has become my therapy, and as long as I can continue to pour my soul out through a brush or pencil, I know that I will survive.  As long as I have a sliver of light in me, I know I will be able to fight, and one day I know that the darkness will recede for good.

But until then, I will force it back and shape it into something better, something beautiful, something worth saving.

Like me.

Last year, life changed, but it did not end.
Last year, I rediscovered who I am supposed to be.