I looked at myself in the mirror the other day as I was getting ready for work and realized how differently I saw myself now than even just a short month ago. Its amazing to me still the amazing gifts life has in store for me. I don't have everything, and as much as I want to believe that my life is going to follow the path I have so intricately created in my mind, I know that its not possible. I know I still have to wake up every morning and paint my picture stroke by stroke.
Some strokes will be smooth, and without imperfections. As if completely comfortable moving gracefully across the white canvas. Those are the moves I make in certainty, without fear, without hesitation, and with ease. The smooth strokes are not the focal point of this picture though, they are the strokes that were unfinished or imperfect in the past, but now are the design of my current understandings. The areas of my personality, the areas of my skills and talents that I am sure of. These strokes are the ones that within their linear nature create the perfect background for the imperfections that will inevitably follow.
For just as in life, I know these next steps to be truer than anything I could ever imagine. The harsh and unfinished lines of my creation. The faded but not erased portions of my life. These lines so clearly made with a slow and fearful hand, worried about the direction, the color, or the likelihood of failure. They are rough and pointed, some pushed firmly into place followed by a degree of incomplete beauty. These are the strokes that keep my picture animated, that keep my story recording, and that keep my life unwinding.
There are points in my masterpiece where there is a stillness of motion, where there is a tampered understanding of flexibility and forward moving. Days where a simple dot, or circle, make more of a difference than a star. Where the canvas craves my stroke, my color, my attention. In time I have learned the importance of observing the painting as much as I add to it. To analyze the strokes, the movement, the space between and within the designs that both tragically and graciously determine the overall picture.
But alas, the painter will continue to paint, and my legs will always move forward. For with understanding, courage, and strength the canvas will continue to grow. Paint splattered and so imperfectly beautiful I see no end to the possibility of completion. I look for happiness in the unknown, and opportunity in each intersecting line.
