Today, I find, me. I am awake…as me. I felt a lot of things yesterday a whole range of emotions. Today, I feel everything, but it’s different, there’s love there. I cried tears of gratitude this morning. Despite all the stress and heartache and pain, all my struggles around my brother, and work piling up requiring more of my presence, and all the low-low moments. Amongst all that, I had a moment of pure gratitude. I think it was a mixture of relief, gratitude, and joy for getting to a place of stability in understanding myself. I know I’ve got a long way to go, and there’s going to be down moments, but this particular moment was breathtaking. And if you’re reading this, you’re one of the people I dearly love who helped me get here. I have so much gratitude for you being in my life. Thank you.
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I have not been in the mind space to draw or paint lately. I’m not sure why. I typically go through creative cycles and that’s always been normal for me. But all these discoveries about who I am…who we are… it’s mind blowing. It makes me think about so many things in my life, so many experiences that were viewed through a foggy lens. All my life I have only been catching parts of the story and not a clear image. What does that say about my history? What does that say about me? About who I am…who I should be? Who I can be?
It’s a profound discovery about myself. It’s frightening and exhilarating. This morning I find myself slightly more hopeful than I have been. I owe that to some very awesome people in my life. R, my T, and my two friends in my discord group. Holy shit, they have been priceless in my growth and healing. We have run into things sometimes in our interactions with each other as humans often do. But then we talk about them. Like really talk about them. From a non-judgmental place we talk about how our interactions effect our individual parts and what our reactions could mean about ourselves. But also, we talk about how we can do better and support each other.
We look for answers together, we explore, we discover things about ourselves. We share our pain, our struggles, and ultimately real human love for one another. It’s not surprising we’re all artists. The one defining characteristic is that we all show incredible courage to look deep within ourselves, to find meaning where there’s so much pain. The same defining characteristic, courage, is necessary for art.
I’m learning about what it means to be in self from my friend. To be curious, not afraid, accepting, confident, calm, and compassionate towards the others. I think that’s where the wisdom comes into play isn’t it? To have the perspective to view it from afar and simply want to know more, to listen, to have empathy and share the warmth of love with others, the love I know I really do have inside me.
I show this to my friends often. I try my best to show that to everyone I know. I think that’s what people find endearing about me. It’s why, despite how broken I have often felt, how afraid I’ve been that I can’t really feel love, or that people don’t really know me… I still continue to care. Deep down, I really do love those around me, in an almost sacrificial way.
But now it’s time for me to give myself some of that isn’t it? To lay everything down on the line for me, for all of us. I couldn’t have gotten here to this point of clarity, here in the silent eye of the storm, without those who have loved me in the past, present and certainly in my future.
I get it now. I get why you all say you’re proud of me, I get it. I’m proud of me too.
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I wanted to include a special thanks to my dearly departed brother. That pain that lit a fire in me; may it never burn out.
A song for you I wrote in memory As faint as anything We etched into the walls It's all for you We called the venomous To silent strike on any vein Like a bayonet array In the afternoon When did you Fill out the melody? With sacred innocence In the middle of the war I fought for you The pride in every light That shined upon your face From a memory erased It's all for you We pledged to send a photograph Of every frame, of every laugh We meant to have A song for you A song for you A song for you It's all for you A song for you A song for you I wrote in memory As faint as anything We etched into the walls It's all for you The pride of every light That shined upon your face Like a memory erased A song for you A song for you A song for you It's all for you A song for you -Kishi Bashi