This is the story of a human.
A human who lives alone on the outskirts of a small city somewhere on this earth. A human who continues day in and day to show up for herself even if it’s just by getting out of bed in the morning. One that is in a continuous battle with her sadness, her anxiety, and the dark constant hovering clouds that follow no matter where she goes. No matter how high the sun is in the sky.
With unsteady hands I have tried to capture the small, simple, strenuous struggle of everyday life. Rising over and over. The sky changing, the coffee the same with far too much sugar on an empty stomach. There is no early morning routine that sees me journaling or giving thanks to another day. My weary, tired eyes open and I take long, heavy breaths trying to grasp hold of a will to rise and move. To be in the world. To be present.
We all have our burdens to bear. Days even the sunniest of ones can feel painful and desperately long. I want light but crave darkness. Crave the comfort of the sun tucking itself behind the horizon, the night’s sky a warm blanket.
In the last 18 months of this never-ending pandemic I have been for the most part alone. I live alone and I am an ocean away from most of my friends and family. I have isolated for days, weeks on an end just me, myself, and I. My thoughts swirling, striking when I am at my lowest. At my most vulnerable.
I have had time on my hands, time, to think of my story, of how I want to tell it, to show it. Rather than letting myself wither away in isolation, alone. Not the whole story but parts. The everyday mountains many of us climb just to breathe in and out.
Lifting my heavy head each morning is a feat. A life turned upside down. Work and routine gone and only my sadness to hold on tight to. A tether weighing me down yet keep me grounded when all feels lost. But now there are days though where I can no longer sit still. The call to do something, anything, during these idle hours far too strong to ignore.
Suddenly there is too much time.
And because of that I have started painting again. And in the rubble of all I once knew, I began to dream of what I saw for myself before I got lost wandering down too many different paths. All my failed projects from years before, all those times my mind whispered I wasn’t good enough suddenly felt like a challenge rather than a snake coiling around me constricting my airways, whispering how I will never be good enough, how I could never succeed.
There is so much we can be capable of when we least expect it. The night I cried curled up in a ball wondering how it was that life felt like an endless loop, the overwhelming sadness playing on repeat. The same old garbage running through my head.
Those who suffer from mental health issues often have a deep-seated calling to create no matter how at odds it is with their state of mind, with their ability to be present long enough to work on their art. Whatever it may be.
This space will be an extension of art. Videos that can document me creating through depression.
I am not here to give tips on how to beat mental health issues as I am still and may forever be working on such things myself. But I hope to create a space of safety. A space where everyone and anyone can relate in some way. That my videos might bring you comfort in knowing that we aren’t alone in our struggles. Because if the age of social media has taught me anything, it’s that so many of us are all living the same life, the same simulation. Our quirks, our sadness, our traumas, our stories though individual and very much our own are intertwined in many ways.
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