Scars

       When I was 13 years old I began having difficulty getting out of bed in the middle of the day.  I couldn't find any motivation to and nothing seemed worth attempting, it was doomed to failure anyway.  I began on a long road of different anti-depressant medications over the next 26 years.  Each medication became a different way to perceive things with a small list of side-effects, mostly physical and mostly unpleasant.  The road into the medications can be tumultuous and the transition between different ones can be plain horrible.  The body and brain don't adapt very well to those changes as seamlessly as seems fair if you're already having difficulty finding the reason to care about living anymore. 

       Through these different filters of viewing life and meeting the people I have, I've come to embrace their pain and suffering.  I've found others to be the most authentic and vulnerable when discussing their traumas and embarrassments.  It's helped me feel better about my own path.  Even though theirs is different, it's taught me that everyone's path is unique and susceptible to different cliffs and caves they fall down and hide in.  As is mine.

       There is no 'normal' in life for anyone.  Just different.  The same goes for our minds as we are constantly absorbing the next series of positive and negative circumstances.  We are victims to this society and it's expectations and we all suffer because of it.  It's not a healthy forest we have to navigate, but if we can find the humanity in the dark recesses in the thick foliage of our own and others' insecurities, we can find a purpose within the chaos.  The more pain we experience, the greater is our capacity of empathy, understanding and love. 

       The scars we have may be shameful to ourselves, but beacons of hope for others who know how that scar tissue came to be.  You should be proud of those scars.  Your pain is another's validation for their experiences and life.  It helps someone else know why they should get out of bed and why it's okay to have the scar tissue that they do. 

       All of my paintings come from sadness, but I'm glad it happened.  Maybe you will enjoy the fruits of it too.