It’s Personal

I’ve been trying to distract myself with work and some easy projects as our family deals with some heavy news. It hasn’t really been working. Painting is usually my calming zen activity, but it feels daunting now when it shouldn’t. Though I did come up with a highly conceptual art idea about the nature of reality, the way we present ourselves through photographs, the mess behind the scenes, accent walls, and miniatures. I might be in a weird head space?

(↑ From the Field Museum’s Egyptian mummy exhibit. But you know, similar. Perhaps with a tiny black and white abstract on the wall and one piece of furniture that photographs well.)

It’s funny — I’ve been seeing a lot of thoughts about less curation and a more personal blogging approach making a big comeback. And I’ve always tried to keep things personal, even when they’re hard sometimes. But then things happen to us that, although they affect us deeply, aren’t ours to share.

I don’t know how to say this. It’s like ‘XYZ is happening to my son/sister/spouse/friend, but here, let me ramble on about how it makes me feel.’ It can be cathartic to write, but maybe it’s not always appropriate to share? It’s why my loved ones aren’t featured heavily here. It’s why I usually wait for some distance from an event to take time and process before word salad-ing my way through. But I also know that this has affected me to the point that my pulling back from work has been noticeable, so at some point it needed to at least be acknowledged.

Things are hard right now. Knowing that someone you love is going through something scary is hard! But she’s going to be OK. We are hopeful that the worst is behind us.