Resilience

IMG_1715.jpeg

“Shelter”

48”x36”

acrylic on canvas

There have been times in my life where I thought that strength equated with resilience. All things can be solved if you put your head down and work hard. Power through it. I think I got that idea from my dad. He would always say, “where there’s a will, there’s a way.” I took that mean there was some sort of goal to be had and there was certainly a way to get there if you had the character. 

But what I didn’t take into account is that there are no straight lines in life. And this idea of character having something to do with how focused you are on a goal is grossly misleading.

Resilience. The ability to bounce back. Elasticity. Toughness. 

I am privileged. I am a white female who came from a place of financial security and where love dominated the household. But I have my dark times and my path has not always been an easy one, financially or emotionally. But this idea of resilience and strength was core to being able to go on. I am ok. I am strong. And most importantly, I don’t need your help. I’ve got this. I am resilient. Life can throw at me what it will. 

Don’t get me wrong. I haven’t had terrible trauma in my life to really test this resilience I so cherish. I really am ok. I do not have suicidal ideations as the only way out of my inner turmoil. I have always been blessed with a financial safety net. But I think I built a wall around myself. I coated it each passing year with an air of self-reliance. I got this. I don’t need your help. 

But nothing sustains this way. Nothing lives independent of everything around it. Life is an intimate web of existence and eventually the hard shell cracks only to reveal a different beauty and a disparate reality. 

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Collective Grief and Ambiguous Loss

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The Beginning