I love to draw, paint, design — pretty much anything artistic. It makes me feel happy and accomplished to create something that didn’t exist before I imagined it. I like to paint things in a way that is familiar and recognizable, but at the same time I like to show things in a whole new light, using bright colors to emphasize the beauty in this world, and to give the viewer a sense of joy.

With a paintbrush in my hand, and good music filling the spaces around me, I feel completely at peace as I lightly and methodically place brushstroke after brushstroke on the canvas. Nothing else matters, I am completely focused, completely capable.

For awhile, I lost the inspiration to paint. It’s not that I couldn’t do it, I just stopped doing it. I stopped getting that feeling of peace, I no longer felt content. Painting made me feel crippled, it made me feel angry, it made me feel sad.

SMA is cruel that way. The way it takes everything away from you. I stopped painting because my right arm – the one that I still have some use of – started getting weaker. I couldn’t hold it out to reach my easel in the same way that I used to. My hand would get shaky and my arm would flop down out of exhaustion and remain unusable for several minutes.

I would sit with my arm hanging down, not quite ready to ask for help, just thinking. In my frustration, I thought how ridiculous it was that I couldn’t do something as simple as reach my arm out. I thought about what it would be like when I can no longer move at all, when I can no longer breathe on my own. I thought about how and when I would die. I thought about the things I will never experience – love, marriage, building a family of my own. I allowed myself to cry for just a minute.

 

For awhile, SMA won. I let it hold on to a piece of me for way too long before I realized that my whole life has been a series of losses and adaptations. I got through all that happened before and I would get through this. I am stronger than SMA.

The painting above is the first one that I did after my period of adaptation. It took forever, and it was a lot of work! For me, this is a personal best. At 11×14″ it’s much smaller than what I used to do. The smaller size allowed me to work on my lap without having to reach so much. I still used my bright Liquitex colors, but the smaller canvas and smaller brushes allowed me to do so much more detail work.

This painting means so much to me. This ballerina is very much a part of me – or who I wish I was. It is a stormy day, but still so bright and full of beauty. The ballerina is out there, dancing in the wet sand because it is her place of peace. She is not using the umbrella because she is not afraid to get wet, she embraces life as is comes, experiencing all of it.

One day I will be this ballerina.

 

Philippians 4:13.

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