Spring Transformations

As the warmer air comes in and thaws frozen ground, I feel the same transformation happening within me. The icy cold shell that anger had formed over my heart has now begun to melt away.

I’m finding there is still quite a bit of sadness lingering beneath those frosty layers, but now that I’ve gotten through the anger, I’m better able to deal with those sad feelings.

I started removing items from the house that remind me of Minute Man and Girl Child. I was embarrassed to realize that I had been holding on to these things, like I had been holding on to hope that somehow I would wake up in the morning sunshine to find that everything that has happened over the last six months has been nothing more than a bad dream.

I painted over the pink walls in Girl Child’s old bedroom. I disassembled her lemonade stand one bolt at a time when really I just wanted to throw it out into the street and let the oncoming traffic do the grunt work. I’ve thrown out the gravestone rubbing Minute Man and I made together. I’ve taken down his photo that was still hanging above the stove.

All this “spring cleaning” has really left me feeling quite sad. I hadn’t made the connection to my recent funk until my BFF pointed it out to me. “It’s the final good-bye” she told me and she hit the nail on the head. I hadn’t realized that is what I was doing, but that felt exactly right.

I’ve finally come to accept that this is reality. It really sunk in last night when my room mate didn’t come home. I was alone in an enormous old house full of empty rooms.

My room mate, for those of you that were not aware, is my best friend’s little brother. He’s getting ready to move out to California to be with some chick he met on the Internet. Personally, I think she’s going to harvest his kidney and leave him in a tub full of ice, but that’s just my opinion. Best of luck to you Roomie!

It looks like I MIGHT have a new room mate lined up. A co-worker of mine has a gay (male) friend that is moving into the area and needs a place to stay. Crap! If I had known that, I might not have painted over the pink walls!! Is that offensive to assume? I hope that’s not offensive to the male gay community.

So what has this post and all these new discoveries amounted to? This is what:

"Remember that "seeing is believing" puts the cart before the horse. Art is the concrete artifact of faith and expectation, the realization of a world that would otherwise be little more than a veil of pointless consciousness stretched over a gulf of mystery." - Stephen King

My art teacher said this is my best work ever. She asked what about this sketch was different from the others. The answer that came out of my mouth was like a light bulb illuminating a long forgotten attic full of treasure.

“I had an emotional connection to the subject,” I said choking on the last word.

The sea shell was also another object, I needed to face. I had given it to Minute Man shortly after we parted. He left it with me, telling me to hang on to it until he returned. I did hold on to it, hoping the day would come where he could say or do something would right the thing he did to make me feel so wronged. I’ve finally accepted that day is not coming.

To me, the shell represents my heart. It’s the former home of an elusive creature that has been protected by a hard shell.  It is deep and dark and although you can look inside, there are parts that are still hidden from the light. However, it is vacant now and there is space for a new tenant to take up residency, if they’re not afraid of the dark.