Some days it feels like I’m going crazy.
It’s been a year since Will died. A year of relentless and futile attempts to understand how or why it happened. A year of trying to come to terms with the utter senselessness of this situation. A year of shock, denial, confusion. I’ll never understand why it happened, but I’ll always know it shouldn’t have.
People keep talking about how great it’s going to be when everything returns back to normal after quarantine. They keep asking me about what it will be like for me, what the first thing I will do is, etc. What they don’t understand is that nothing is going to change for me. Nothing will ever go back to normal for me. Nothing changed when quarantine started. For me, the nightmare didn’t start from the pandemic. The nightmare started from Will’s death.
The closest thing I have felt to relief from this never-ending torment has been when I create art. At least with art there is some possibility of bringing my inward feelings out into physical representations.
One day I laid out a 48x72 piece of paper, stripped nude, and painted myself with black ink, acrylic, watercolor, and charcoal. I drenched my hair and hands in paint to use as a brush. I spent hours just sitting and crying. I allowed myself to see what I looked like and how I felt. It was depressing, heartbreaking, therapeutic.
I’ve spent the past couple months pouring my heart and soul into art pieces like this, and at some point along the way I realized I want to showcase the art I’ve been making in order to both share with the world what this has been like for me, as well as to honor Will with it.
I applied to show my work at Greenly Art Space, and I would like to officially announce that my work has been accepted for a solo showing at the end of 2021. The show will exclusively feature art I’ve created around all of the grief, mourning, and chaos I am continuing to wrestle with. I am honored to be able to share, and I am honored to have been chosen by such a wonderful group. As time gets closer I will share more details for those of you who wish to attend.
As always, I dedicate all of this to my darling Will. I know he would have been so proud. If he was here, I would give him a big hug and say thank you for changing my life and being my greatest supporter. I love you dear.