the art of grief

i've been down, really kinda scary down.  ashamed of my meager life and my little retail job.  tired of explaining that Marines don't make 6 figure salaries.  worried about my physical health.  i have a doctor's appointment about my diabetes and my broken foot and broken knee on Tuesday.

it's been three years and i miss him as much now as i did the moment he "left" me.  i remember sitting beside him in the hospital after they pronounced him gone.  i couldn't believe his body was there but he was gone.  he was gone; just gone.

i sat there holding his arm, trying to get his fingers to close around mine but it was all wrong.  he wasn't warm anymore.  and he was getting cooler.

sadly i still remember this with clarity and detail that astounds me.  but then i've always been cursed/blessed with a great capacity for memory.

i've held many jobs over my life.  when i was 16, i was a model.  i never told anyone that after i left my hometown.  but i was.  i was a little local model for a boutique.  it was my mother's idea and i always did what she told me to do.  but the one thing i have always been is an artist.  i was called a shy child, extremely withdrawn.  i wasn't really though.  i was just careful.  i never wanted to get into trouble.   when i was 7 my mother was told to get me involved in some activity after school.  i asked for art lessons.  she allowed it.  and i've never stopped being creative, artistic.

Antonin Artaud wrote:  "no one has ever written, painted, sculpted, modeled, built, or invented except to literally get out of hell."

i can tell you, from my experience, that statement is true.

i still paint.

 

footboard of my bed that i don't use but it's leaning against the wall in my hallway with books slowly building up underneath it.  so i guess it's a glorified book end.

 the headboard that i actually use as a headboard.  i also play my ocean waves sounds to try and go to sleep with.

 my shark board.  it's leaning against the wall of my bedroom on my dresser.  i love him.  such a flawless machine.

my embroidery piece that i am working on for a Memory Quilt.  it has taken me hours and hours,

and hours and hours to do this and i am still not done.  there is still so much more shading and highlighting to do.  i'll take a photo when i am done.

and of course, Bunny's clothes and her bags i wear, the way i use her as my alter ego, is all my art.

and my words.  my writing.  it builds up inside me and i have to let it out.  i have to tell someone about what i feel.  you guys are it.  you are all i have.

i am grieving still.  i get along okay.  i am fighting this slump with all that i have inside me,

which is my love for him, and my children.  i can't let them down.

and my silly little dogs.  i love them so much.

now i need to try and love myself a little bit. more than self preservation.  more than, "i'm doing it for him and my children."  i need to try and like myself.  i need to find something inside me that my mother never saw, that my father ignored, the my brother turned his back on, that my first husband turned cold towards......

i need to find something inside me that only my Dragon saw.

my children?  aw, they love me because i am their mom.  they imprinted on me and they know i would die for them.

but me?  just me by myself?  what am i worth?

i need to collect my thoughts and remember all the things my Dragon said to me when we were courting, and we were courting right up to the moment he died.

i love him.

but i need to like me, to find something in myself i am proud of.

maybe,

maybe i can be proud of my art again.

maybe i can try to pull myself out of this hell of my own creation.

get it?  i "created" my own hell?  how's that for irony?