You know, I pretty much gave up art as a teenager because

I felt I wasn’t good enough. I saw other students who did much better work than me and learned faster.

I let shame get in the way of doing something I really enjoyed.

When I had the transverse myelitis/MS attack that left me disabled, I realized I might not have all that much longer to live. And I asked myself, because I was grappling with depression at that point, what would really make me happy, make me want to get out of bed and face the day?

And the answer was playing with art supplies.

So I gave myself permission to buy some art supplies and do art as badly as I wanted to. The goal wasn’t to produce anything that anyone would like, it was to get me out of bed and to stop me from feeling sad for awhile.

It was just therapy, to rehabilitate my emotional state and also my right hand which became clumsy after a lesion in my brain near the “hand knob” took away my dexterity.

It turned out to be good therapy for me and I’m so grateful for the time, the resources and the space to be able to play with my art supplies.

And now, several years later, I’m even occasionally producing a painting that one or two people like enough to accept as a gift.

I hope to keep improving. Gives me something to look forward to.

I learned something. Life is too short. Give yourself permission to do something badly if it is something that brings you joy and doesn’t harm anyone else. Even if people laugh at you, it doesn’t really matter, because you only have one life and whatever happiness you can squeeze out of it, you should go ahead and take.

Did this 8x10 pastel painting today.