Highly Prized

This is my first page that i did for the sketchbook challenge, and the theme for january was "highly prized." One of the things i prize most is my journey to becoming a healthier, happier person, the journey to becoming the more real me. the big white rectangle on the left page is actually an envelope with a letter in it. the sketch is a picture of now-me kissing the cheek of little-me. yay!

portrait of the girl inside me. and an old journal page.

i've just realized...

that i was a child. a little girl. what did that little girl do wrong? did she deserve it somehow? does any little girl? any child?

To love is to carry a vessel that can be lost or stolen.

"You love someone, you open yourself up to suffering. Those are the risks. That's the burden. Like wings, they have weight. We feel that weight on our backs, but they are a burden that lifts us. Burdens which allow us to fly."

for nie nie

I don't normally include this, sometimes I feel like it detracts from the finished piece, but above is the original I used, from the beautiful and talented Stephanie Nielson's blog. (Go here to read her.)


And here is the finished product! This one was the most difficult so far; it had the most colors. And I have to tell you, it looked quite a lot like crap during the process. Cutting and gluing one color at a time seems to proceed very slowly and it looks rather awful right up until you paste the very last color (in this case, Janes red hair) and it brings the entire picture together. I think this is a metaphor for life. :)

the battle.

it was awful, and then it was more awful, and then it was not so awful, and then it was brilliant! and then, i had to start thinking about doing it again, and it was awful.

are you here looking for honesty?

If you're here today looking for art, you won't find any. Today is one of those days where I can't swallow the truth inside me any longer. I feel like I am choking to death on the reality that is, that I can't say out loud. Because let's be honest, who wants to hear it?

My life thus far, as short as it's been, has been kind of sucky. My experiences with love, with sex, with all those wonderful firsts that you're supposed to anticipate with twirling whirling butterflies, and experience in their own time, were ruined. Those firsts were stolen from me.

And now... let's just say that some days are harder than others.

Today is a hard one. Not because I'm feeling sorry for myself, longing for a life that is normal, or easier. Not tonight. Tonight I sit here with determination on my fingertips. I plan to share with you something that I have not wanted to share with anyone, something no one should ever have to share.

I have experience with abuse. This is not my secret, not anymore, but part of a necessary explanation that needs to come first. In the past year and a half or so, I have been slowly, steadily recovering memories of that past that for a time I knew nothing of. They are becoming a part of me again, these memories, and sometimes, for a while, I allow them to control me, rather than controlling them. Well tonight dear readers, I am taking control.

I recovered a memory some months ago of being drowned. Tortured actually, the technical term for what happened to me is called water-boarding. I was held under water in a bathtub until I lost consciousness and then I was revived. Over. And over. And over.

Now for my secret: I have not been able to step foot in a bathtub since I discovered this memory. That was months ago. I wash my hair in the sink, painfully. I put on deodorant, I apply lotion, but I have not been able to bring myself to bathe. I cannot stand the way it feels to touch my skin. Part of me feels like I don't deserve to be clean. And then there is the part of me that wants to faint at the sound of running water, the part of me that swims through a dark cloud of haze when she feels water on her arms. My feet are filthy. I stink. My clothes stink. My skin is one giant blotch of acne. I am disgusting. I am terrified.

Tonight, I am taking back my body. I am taking back my memory. I am taking back my dignity. I will no longer allow this memory to control me. I will get in the bathtub and wash every ounce of crud off of my skin. I will stay in the bathtub, until the water goes cold, and then I will drain the water and run new water and do it again. I will stay in the water until I am no longer afraid, just bored. And then I will do it again tomorrow. And the next day. And every day until I am whole again.

I can beat this. I will beat this. I WIN.

two more!

Saige and Lovely

Charlie playing the piano

bubbling

and another

Emily Grace

a new thing i learned to do!

I cut them out of paper, I didn't do them on the computer. The top is Saige, and the bottom is Charlie.