home is wherever I'm with me

I painted something new. I have painted several trees before, but usually they had a bird or two to keep them company. I don't really think much about why I paint what I paint. Mostly because I'm not a professional artist and have very limited skills in this department.

I have always loved arts and crafts. I used to sit and color as a child while my brother and sister took their naps. My mom didn't force me to nap. I didn't like it or need it, and I would keep myself occupied as long as there were pages to color and crayons to choose from. (I just ended a sentence with a preposition). Anyway, so when I started painting recently it was a result of a break-up. He was and is an artist, and the trips to art stores made me wonder what I could do if I bought some paint for myself. Adding to those experiences was the growing desire for me to connect with something that my friend Emily used to love to do when she was alone.

I'm not very good at being alone. I'm a pretty independent person. I like shopping by myself and I don't really like for people to tell me how to do things. But when it comes to just sitting in my apartment when I get home from work, I get a bit lonely. I used my last relationship as a distraction to avoid dealing with this inability to accept myself as myself, outside of my identity as a "girlfriend" or "sister" or "daughter" or "friend." I think a lot of who we are is shaped by our relationships, but there is something within us that is also truly us. It's what makes us unique. In Eat, Pray, Love, Gilbert talks a bit about an experience she had in Italy where her friends had to pick a word to describe themselves. She offered "writer," to which her friend stated that it was something she did, not who she was. I find myself feeling a bit like she did. I'm not in any kind of existential crisis. I think I am actually just learning to accept myself for myself. Whether this means I am single, in a relationship, happy, sad, in love, out of love, etc., I am who I am (not to quote Popeye or anything...).

All this to say that when I painted this tree today I was tempted to add a bird or something. The tree felt a little lonely on its own. But I didn't. And the more I thought about it, the more I felt like this tree might be what I need to see in the morning when I wake up. It's strong in its isolation. It's rooted to something deeper. And it's blossoming into something beautiful. Maybe, it's just like me.