Art after Heartbreak
It is hard getting back to normal after experiencing loss.
Sometimes, you almost feel guilty to pick up a pencil, asking the question…
“Why?”
“Why do I deserve to enjoy anything?”
Or even guilty asking, “so, life just moves on for me?”
...like I didn’t care?
You may feel like you are supposed to be grieving, and thus never to enjoy life again—otherwise it is proof that it wasn’t actually a big deal to you.
Unless you have gone through this same experience, you may not understand what I am talking about.
If you have no clue what I am talking about
Let me be honest. I didn’t want to draw right after everything. I was willing to tell everyone who gave me a deposit,
“HERE, just take it back…go somewhere else. I am sorry, I just can’t…”
To be even more honest, every single person I would have said that to would have happily taken their money back saying, “Please, please don’t worry about it, I understand.” Compassion mixed with pity.
In fact, I had some people cancel their commissions because of this. Let me be even more honester (if I dare use a word that doesn’t exist), I genuinely appreciated it. In the moment, it felt like one more thing off of my plate. My brain was numb.
Then, for those I had promised a drawing for, as easy as it would have been to say “take it back” and they reply “Ok,”
I had to ask myself the real question,
“Why?”
“Why did I take on the commission in the first place?”
Some may be quick to respond for me, “…the money…what else?”
As I try to hold back my laughter, let me quickly insert that I really don’t make a whole lot of money doing this. I do, in fact, wake up at 3:00am (3:30AM if I want to “sleep in”) to draw, before getting my kids ready for school and then heading to my 8am-5pm job in another county.
Money is not my “Why”
My Why is to give someone the opportunity to give to someone else something they deem very special and personal.
Someone else gets that Feeling that I usually don’t get.
99 out of 100 times, I do not get to see the joy on someone’s face when they have been given a drawing; whether it be a memory of a child gone too soon, a family portrait, or a dog that once served the family.
I don’t get that “Wow” moment…someone else does.
I don’t get that “How” moment…someone else does.
I don’t get that first look, that smile filled with tears, that cry out in excitement, the stare that can’t find the words…someone else does.
Pardon me as I actually say, “And let me be the most honestest…”
And let me be the most honestest, That Feeling that I give to someone else is my Why.
I am only a small part in this person’s world, and I am honored to be that part. That part that let’s them keep giving. They get the Wow’s and the How’s, but I can keep my Why. And together, we can give back to the world.
In brief…
“Why do I deserve to enjoy anything?”
So I can heal…So life can move on…
“So life just moves on for me?”
Yes…yes it does. But life can’t move on until the healing begins.
