Emergence

To the outside observer, my process of healing probably seems like a bipolar ride in a dysfunctional theme park. It ain't no piece of cake being on it either. There are days when I'm coasting high, scattering rose buds on the road toward a brighter future, and others where I feel like I've been fitted with the cement shoes of my past. And I'm sinking in futility.

This is made doubly hard by my propensity to sabotage myself, an activity ingrained in me by years of being constantly and relentlessly criticized. Somewhere inside me, there's a girl cowering in her room praying that her exacting father will finally realize that she isn't perfect. She is fiercely, and often, obnoxiously defended by the warrior woman I've created to shield her from the seemingly endless barrage of fate's stumbling blocks.

Am I just another case of a bipolar in a dissociative state? Or am I just trying to survive the challenges this life has posed me? 

As I sit in my fun room, listening to a bird sing through my open window, seeing the first awakening from the thaw, sipping my morning coffee, I make plans in my head.  Maybe it's time to stop wishing that things were different, that my life hadn't been hijacked onto this collapsing trajectory, and actually take steps to change things. There's no magic formula to happiness. Happiness is or it isn't.

I have been making visualization sketches about the things that I have the ability to change, like where and how I live my life. Then as my pencil poised for another sketch of my optimal loft space, I started to create this...

I called this sketch "emergence". It wants to evolve into a painting that will serve not only as an inspiration but as a driving force for me to get off the bipolar express, and begin becoming functional again.