I have rewritten this blog post about four times already. This is harder than I realized. When I came up with the drawing, it was inspired by some of my friends and family reflecting on how they have treated me at one point or another in my life. There was no particular conversation that really brought it on, no event that would have really triggered it, but it happened. As nice as an apology was to hear, it was also that twinge of a reminder of it happening and it sent me shooting back to the feeling I would get when I would go through any hard time in my life.
Per the title and illustration, you can see what I saw in the mirror when I was feeing less than what I am. They saw ‘Don’t let people get to you’, ‘Don’t sweat the small stuff’, ‘Always keep going forward’. It’s pretty sound advice in my opinion. I mean, why would I let someone else’s opinion of my life wreck my decision making and question my intelligence and make me feel incapable of living a good and happy life? Not that difficult, right?
Except when those are the people you trust and love and they turn to you and suddenly question you so much that it makes you step back and wonder, ‘Do you not know me?’ or ‘Don’t you understand how you are making me feel right now?’. It’s enough to make you hide in the shell you spent so hard coming out of. For me, it used to make me hate everything around me and wish myself invisible. But that, my friend, isn’t how life works.
That certainly proved true for me when I was going through this multiple times in my life. I was forced to see things clearer and remind myself of exactly who cares and who doesn’t. I was given new knowledge that I was unaware of until I accepted it. I was given the wisdom to know that some people don’t care and some do and others use me for a comfort.
After processing all the apologies for my past, I realized something about myself. I do keep moving forward. I do push through. I allow myself to feel my feelings but I don’t let them bring me down. I don’t abide by everyone’s opinion of a happy life. I realized that I have had to push myself on my own because at the end of the day, I was all I needed to keep going on. That’s not an easy skill to obtain, but I plan on mastering it.
The shadow eventually went away over time. I am thankful for that. A lot of that has to do with my own spiritual journey and how I can live the Christian life I want to live regardless of the obstacles. The mirror simply shows me the way I look now, not who I am. Took me a long time to train my mind to see myself that way and now, I feel happy from it. I needed me to accept myself for what I was made to do. Though I am still discovering this life long path, I do feel that now, more than ever, I am on the right one. And if I am totally wrong, then I hope for God’s grace to lead me down the right path in my life.
About the illustration:
I wanted to make sure that I (the one looking in the mirror) stood out with color and making sure everything around me was dull and a bit washed out. When I would get in a bad place in my life, I would often see the world this way. Not literally of course but its the feeling that I would get from everything around me. I drew myself as how I look now (with slightly longer hair) because it was recently that I did my reflecting on my life and realized what I had gone through. I couldn’t come up with a way to make the mirror look like a time warp of some sorts without adding color, so I decided to just make it odd looking and a bit out of place. The shadow reflection has to no place in my life anymore and the mirror, showing me the wrong image of myself, doesn’t either.
Don’t forget to check out both of my coloring books that are now available on Amazon!
Fun for Hours for those who enjoy a good coloring challenge!
Stressed Out!! for those who need to let out some steam without the profanity!
Madelyn Janelle 