She Decided to be Brave

She Decided to be Brave

I haven't written in a while...sometimes I feel like I need to have something profound to say.  So all of these thoughts came to me after having a lunch date with some friends.  One of the friends I had lunch with is one of my dearest friends ever - you know the kind - she knows all your secrets and she still likes you!  We've been friends for around 13 years now.  The other two friends have been acquaintances for a number of years, but we are just now getting to know each other and beginning to get comfortable.  At one point in the conversation, I could consciously feel myself beginning to get "guarded". There wasn't a specific reason for this, I'm not sure why this feeling came upon me.  I was trying to be careful so I didn't say the wrong thing, trying to think of something funny to say, or something really clever to interject into the conversation.  I was so physically and emotionally aware of it at that moment, that I just had to breathe and let it go.  Walls.  The walls were up again, if only for a brief moment.  Does anyone else have a problem with these "walls"?  Yes, I put up walls.  To protect my heart, to keep people at a safe distance, to make sure I don't let them know too much about me, to make sure I don't let them in.  After all, what would they think of me?

I remember distinctly one of the first times I added a brick to my wall.  I must have only been around 8 or 9 years old.  I had a group of two or three close friends and we always walked home from school together.  We would always end up at one of our houses to play for a while before we headed our separate directions.  On this particular day, I didn't want to play.  I wanted us all to sit down and just talk to each other.  I wanted to "really know" these friends and what they were all about.  I wanted to know what their favorite colors were, what did they want to be when they grew up, did they have dreams at night, who was their favorite person in the world.  Of course when I suggested this new idea of "talking", they laughed.  They told me I was so "weird" and "why did I always have to be so different".  I think my heart shut down a little that day.  I put a brick in the wall that I labeled "friends".  As a teenager when we moved to Texas, I was so shy that people thought I was stuck up.  I was just too shy to speak.  I added a few more bricks to the wall that I built around me.

Then later in my life, in the most crazy of places and the most crazy time of my life, along came unexpected love.  It felt passionate, crazy, soul-filling, and unconditional.  The kind I always wanted to feel that I never thought would happen.  It happened to ME, and I would never be the same.  But like other things, it just wasn't meant to be.  This time, another wall went up and man, was it mortared with cement.  It was built high and wide, because look what happens when the walls come down and you let someone in, someone you thought you couldn't live without.

Time goes on, and I guess you get a little wiser.  Love removes the bricks. You get a little braver, a little more vulnerable.  Almost 21 years of love has removed bricks and walls, and for him, I am so grateful.

Painting from my heart has also removed some of those walls.  It exposes me, my soul.  It feels pretty vulnerable, putting this work on display for the whole world to see.  People get a glimpse.  A glimpse of you - no matter how weird, different, or unacceptable you feel about yourself.  It's amazing when a piece of work evokes a response or an emotion.  People "get it" and the walls come down. It's totally and completely amazing to me.

   

This brave girl was finished today.  It was a result of being brave and letting some walls down, letting people have a "glimpse".

She was made with paint, colored pencils, twine, and a glass heart.

She is available.  She measures 8 X 8 X 1.5 and she comes ready to hang.  If you have questions, comments, or are interested in purchasing, please feel free to send me an email at:  saltlightwatercolors@yahoo.com.

www.donnamartinfineart.com