D and MLC

[ciluzen]

JellyB, that post was beautiful and gave me a lot to think about. I have missed you and your humor and soul, but it looks like you've been busy. You seem to be in a very good place and I hope to be able to get to that level at some point; I really do.

Esame, hugs back to you and I will use that strength. I do tend to share much more here, as you all get it. Most of my friends IRL, though proving to be amazing friends, have a hard time understanding MLC and my inability to trash my STBX (I can hardly write that).

Mel, you're right. Everything does happen for a reason. I needed my eyes opened to what I was giving up by not being true to myself. What I was settling for. I'm finally figuring out day by day who I am and what I want. I think that is a big part of this trip; you get a second chance at being a whole person on your own instead of "the better half".

I had started a painting last year...well over a year ago, I guess. It was going to be a picture of my H as seen from behind, skiing down a hill with my girls; bright colored ski clothes on white snow with blue sky above. It was a large canvas and I had flanked the ski run with winter-bare aspen trees and beyond those on each side, evergreen forests off into the distance. H had expressed excitement about it...even told me where he wanted to hang it in his office. I changed it recently, though. Instead of my family, I started filling the painting with ravens picking through cardboard boxes and flying away with various items, memories and mementos of my life with H. In the foreground and off to the left is one large bird, mostly just his head visible, holding my wedding band and engagement ring in his beak. Its not done yet. I'm taking my time with it.

By the way, I have a weird obsession with ravens. I collect art and trinkets with their images. My studio was named "Ravenview" after the gatherings that would often occur in the fields in front of my house. But it wasn't until recently that I found out that they are a symbol of change. I like the thought of that. With further research I found that, depending on the culture, they are also messengers, prophets, and totems of confronting fears, symbols of the souls of warriors, and Carl Jung thought they represented the dark side of the psyche, the keeper of secrets. Just realized that my "divorce painting" (my young art student's name for it) has a lot more depth to it than originally planned. And...I think I found my spirit animal.