A Post About a Portrait
"Trying to Find the Beauty" copyright Angela Fritz 2009
Ok, I wanted to post about this as it happened, but due to technical difficulties it was delayed. The above picture is a self portrait, a cathartic throwing of paint on canvas, and it comes from some words a friend said trying to comfort me as I sobbed about how nothing ever seemed to go right, and how I just wasn't, at that time, certain of why I was even trying to go on.
I had two friends doing their best for me during my latest meltdown, and they helped a lot, but another meltdown will come, because they always do. And I, due to brain chemistry, due to training and how I was taught to fear and remember and hold bitter grudge, I always find it easier to remember bad times than good. I can rattle off a dozen argument themes my father and I riffed on, and the variations of each theme, as opposed to a handful of flickering moments from a camping trip. I can tell you about the times I was pushed or bullied in school, before I can name any time- and there were a few- where someone was my friend in an institution. I can remember the names of my worst teachers down to Mrs. Buschman and Mr. Ryan in third grade, but I couldn't tell you the name of the science teacher whose pet I was, or the reading teacher who liked me.
And what this means is, when a despair hits, when my mood crashes, I find myself trying to remember, as said earlier, why I bother. The easy answer becomes: Because there are people and animals whose lives would be disrupted if I were to go and die. The harder to believe and parse answer attached becomes: And I have great moments with these people and animals, and will also in the future have them. The hardest to believe answer becomes: Maybe I really make the world a little better with what I do, with what I say, with what I believe, and even for people I can't name off the top of the head... maybe my being gone would be, in the long run, bad.
But that's something that can't ever be quantified or proven, or even really extrapolated on, especially when I hurt so badly that I want the pain to just end. When I hit that point where I want to go utterly numb and never feel again, or yes, wish that I could die without leaving a thousand good debts unpaid and dozens of people in shock. And that is that hope that there is going to be a good moment coming. Some shining time that will wash away traces of hurting for a bit. And a hope that while I know I inevitably am going to get hurt again, maybe, just maybe, it won't be so bad, and I'll have a little more strength to face it.
That second hope always seems to not quite manifest. Every time my nerves get scraped raw and leave me bleeding, it feels as bad as every time before, or worse than any time before. And every time, I have to stare down an abyss, and then reach out for a safety line, someone I can trust, and ask "Why Am I Bothering?" and they can hopefully remind me of the joys that I can't... simply CAN NOT... remember when I fall. And it becomes a combination of safety net and razor wire, because I even find myself wishing in the darkness that these people would STOP being light, because if no one cared enough to cry at my vanishing, I could vanish. But with patience on their part, it does start to fade, and I don't always remember afterwards to say "Thank You"
The portrait is my trying to find that reason, that bit of joy or beauty that I can NOT remember when I fall, when I hate all things about myself, from the body that I have been told through every stage of my life (by the wrong people, but their words are so hard to erase even with friends providing whiteout) is not attractive and will never be so, to the brain that betrays me and whispers dark thoughts in between the creation. I know for a fact some of the others who read my words here are familiar with that search, it's one too many people have to embark on, too often in their lives.
As I clung desperately to my friends, who were thousands of miles away, but coming to me through the very air with their words, as I felt like everything that was me was shattered, I noticed that my hand, through tear-blurred eyes, part of that body I hate so much and wish would somehow die and get replaced (I am first in line when cyborg shells happen, I think) looked like a pale lotus as it rested on my thigh.
So the painting happened.
And now this post happens, because I think I said thank you, but I'm not quite sure, and I want to say "Thank You" in general to not just those friends I felt I could cry on virtual shoulders with, both last time and all the times before, but to the friends I don't know so well, or who don't know me so well, and to the acquaintances and even total strangers that I meet, who in fact, provide lots of little joys.
And when in your own moments of despair and hopelessness, may you also have someone always to remind you of what good you bring, and help you look forward to what good you will undoubtedly, always, at some point once again find.