Portrait of Light

Wendy Lee

November 30, 2014

The painting is entrancing, a mixture of color families.  Green, blue, gray, white, black.  Few other colors are present.  Trees in a forest, fog lifting, the sun rising and light rays stretching to the outer reaches.  Where is the source of light?  I can’t find it.

I guess I shouldn’t call a large, mass produced work a painting.  It is more of a print on canvas, but what do I know about art?  I like this one.  I’ve seen so many over the years, sitting in a similar position, staring intently at the picture so as to not tip my hand by making direct eye contact with my therapist.  A game I never win.  I do appreciate that she sits just to the right of the painting so I have a choice of where to gaze.

Today I am staring in detail.  It is truly bothersome that I cannot figure out from the colors and shadows where the source of light is.  It would be obvious to an artist.  I am no artist.  Still, shouldn’t I be able to tell exactly where the light is?  Where in the sky?  How off-center?  I am merely trying to distract myself from facing the conversation I pay dearly to have.

I always feel that my topics are menial compared to the problems others have in the world.  I have been told that comparing my pain to others does nothing to make my pain go away.  My pain is my pain, and no comparison will lessen it.  And lucky for me, I have also found out that there are simply highly sensitive people in the world who feel everything to the depths of their souls, whether it is something that happens to them or to others.  I am one of those.

I finally say something.

“When will the pain go away?” I ask.  “If I keep working at this, are we talking three months or six months or a year or never?”

I don’t really want the answer because I know there isn’t one, and if there is one, my highly sensitive ass would pick the timetable the farthest away from this very precise moment in time.

Her answer isn’t unexpected. “It depends.  How much stuff do you need to work through to unpack this specific hurt?”

I have come to like this particular word, “unpack.”  The only meaning it ever held for me before is to explain what you do after a trip or after a move.  Open it up, empty out the box or suitcase one or many pieces at a time until there is nothing left in there.  A simple concept.  In this context, it means pretty much the same thing.  You have a particular hurt or problem area, enclosed in a container that must be unloaded.  The problem is that the individual hurt might be tightly wrapped in the bubble wrap and tape of a much larger hurt.  It is rarely as simple as a single piece of pain in one box.  There is just a lot of junk stuffed in there that you have to get out of the way first.

What is the one item I am trying to unpack right now?  I can’t even articulate it, much less unpack it.  Staring now fixedly at the green hues of the painting, I ponder what I am feeling.  Is it the loss of hope?  Is it the feeling that I will never find love?  Is it the shame I feel about being a complete cliché, the proverbial result of a mid-life crisis?  Is it the anger of being so lied to with no remorse?  Is it that I feel that I lost while someone else won?  Is it is that I feel taken advantage of?  Is it is that I am angry that someone simply stopping caring about me?  Is it that I feel I was never cared about?  Is it the loss of the life I expected to lead?  What the hell is it that I want to unpack?  What a waste of money to pay to sit here when I don’t even know what I’m trying to get out of it?

I am getting angry.

I found it!  I found the little speck of light is the sun burning through the fog.  I am satisfied.  At least I have accomplished that.  I’m not sure if it was worth the price of admission, but I have this damned painting figured out.

And perhaps I have come to what I am really concerned with.

I feel old and tired and bitter and angry and entitled and lonely and sad and ashamed and blamed and guilty, in the midst of hope and love and new friendships and passion and happiness.  I can’t reconcile it.  Yet the one overwhelming feeling I have is that no matter what I do, no matter how I grow, no matter how I transform my life, I just don’t feel good enough.  There is always the beast trying to beat me down.  I say it out loud.  “I will never be good enough.  I will never be pretty enough.  I will never have the great body.  I will never be smart enough.  I will never be attractive enough.  I will remain invisible.”

She looks at me with such sadness that I feel I need to comfort her instead.  “You sit here judging yourself so harshly, but you would never treat a friend that way.”  I glare at her, finally making eye contact but with no emotion behind it.  She continues, “You are this amazing person, you have fun hobbies, you have a great job, you are making strong friendships.  It is a new and exciting time for you, yet you won’t let yourself feel the joy.”

I feel defeated.  She is absolutely correct.  I know how much I have transformed already.  Everyone I know sees it.  I get many positive comments on it.  I feel so blessed that I have friends and family who will prop me up with such compliments.  Yet I just won’t allow myself to believe that I am enough, just the way I am.

“Perhaps we should start there.”