I used to be so afraid of the dark but felt drawn to it. To the unknown, the uncertainty. Now that I have listened, I can be at peace with my darkness. “Dark skies” is how I named this piece, hence the title. Just like that skeleton, during this quarantine and frankly, this past two years. That’s how I have felt, dead, naked and vulnerable with all these eyes on me. Pressuring me, telling me to do better, to feel better, to be the “perfect” daughter, the “perfect”  friend, the “perfect”  girlfriend, the “perfect”  student, the “perfect”  employee while in my process of starting to adult and healing myself. Life has been particularly hard while doing that and trying to remain positive, keep my essence and being there for the ones I love.

See, during these two years I have been finding myself time and time again. A never-ending cycle of transformation at full speed. Even struggled with substances to try and balance my overwhelming emotions, nothing seemed to work. Nothing seemed to tame my utter void and pain. Nothing, until I started painting and started to see the colors of life again. Now, I’m still surrounded by darkness but I am at peace with it. Because now I understand that all I needed was to listen to my mind and a lil’ self love.

This process is so weird because it takes a lot of alone time to get in touch with yourself, your feelings and your needs but also requires support from those around you. Just like the skeleton I found myself feeling very lonely while being surrounded with people, the wrong people. By leaving them behind, even though it hurt me like hell, I knew it was the best decision. My support system changed with time and I started asking for help. I was no longer afraid of being vulnerable or felt like a failure for not doing something on my own. So just like the clouds that the skeleton is sitting on, my friends and family have lifted me up and brought color to my life. I am forever grateful of the things that I have lived through, good, bad and worst. I am grateful for those times I wished I wasn’t even alive anymore. I am grateful that I hit rock bottom because when you go deep the only way left to go is up. I have accepted darkness as a part of me and as a part of life. I wish to no longer have that thirst to control things that aren’t in my power. Now, I accept life as it comes at me because no matter what it does I’ll be here to fight back for I have listened to my demons and they no longer scare me.

My art mostly involves skeletons, eyes and bold colors to represent that sense of duality and integration of light and dark or good and bad. For I don’t see either one of the other, but the importance of both as light needs darkness to shine and darkness needs light to be seen.

Other drawings: