Thoughts on a cold day

I am trying to be productive today. I have found a multitude of items that were never entered into the books prior to my surgery. I must have been very out of it. I know I was. I think I am just coming out of the whole experience now. Thinking back, there is such a fog. In fact, a lot of my life seems to be in a fog. Even the early nasty memories which were once so clear and large and painful are now foggy. Where did I go? 

I have the sense that I have not lived my life. I have just gone through the motions. 

I have always been afraid to be real while being unable to act otherwise. Insincerely authentic.

How can I explain how I feel like I'm only just waking up. Not even. In that place between awake and asleep. The eyes aren't even open yet and dreams are more real than what's out there. But the dreams now are pleasant - not the nightmares of long ago. 

I think our trip to Belize, as short and busy and pointless and un-relaxing as it was, helped me somehow. Being at close quarters with someone who you have traditionally been at odds with, and not just getting along with them, but enjoying their company - glad even - to have them along, was ?????

I don't know - I don't have the words. It was many things at once. Unexpected, yes. But not a surprise. Not really. 

Joyful. Freeing.

I did not feel like I was under her judgment all the time. She is quite a judgmental person. I have always been hyper-sensitive to being judged. I intensely dislike being tested, or examined. I am fearful of what will turn up. That perhaps I am not a real girl after all. Or something. 

But I felt good about using my very very poor Spanish when it came up. I felt accepted by the locals on our way through Mexico and Belize even when my attempts were laughable. And they laughed. And I laughed too when I found out what I'd said. It was funny after all. I could be wrong without being a bad person.

This is huge. 

For my entire life, being wrong, or making a mistake has always been equivalent to being bad. Being not good or at least not good enough. A special standard just for me because it was always okay for everyone else to not be perfect.

So I'm guessing that it wasn't that my sister-in-law had changed, although she has - most definitely - but something has happened to me.

And that last painting is evidence of it. Thanks for your comments.

It is dramatic. And strange. And when I started it, my husband was particularly offended with the colours. And I laughed. Because he was absolutely right. And absolutely wrong too. Because I loved the colour whether or not it would "go" anywhere or whether anyone else liked it. They were "my" colours. 

I did play God and removed a tree from the composition. And other parts of the painting are technically "wrong". It is far from perfect in any sense. As Joey pointed out, the rock I don't like, really should be darker. But as seems to happen in quantum theory, taking a picture with a camera changes the composition you are observing. Especially when you are no photographer and don't bother - or know enough - to change the settings on the camera for different lighting conditions. In this case, the flash went off the evening of the sunset and that rock was lit up. I did toy with the idea of adjusting for that and deleting my earlier mistake, but the truth is, I really love how things look when they are lit up in the dark. And so, I went ahead and painted the rock "lit up" even though, in a natural setting, this wouldn't happen. So what? Yes, it's not exactly right without an explanation but I'm not unhappy that the rock is lit up but that it just doesn't look all that rocky. Still, I don't care enough to play with it any longer. The painting makes me happy in all its imperfections. What's funny is that the feel good I get from it is entirely unconnected to the evening I took the picture. Serendipity.

And it really doesn't matter to me whether the painting appeals to everyone. It won't. But I am tickled to death that maybe it will strike someone - anyone else - the same way it does me. I have no way to measure that connection or know when it has happened for real - I'm just pretty sure that I am not the only strange person out there who believes there is a pink and purple world right along side the one we live in.