I shouldn’t automatically think death, cancer, sadness, hurt, and pain when I think of my dad. He deserves better, and so do I. Why did I assume that if I paint about my dad, about his memory, that it should be sad. I loved him, he brought me comfort, and strength, and power, and intelligence, and love, a sense that “the world is mine, I could do anything”, I felt like I could fly, and that sometimes I was. I forgot that feeling. I must get it again in order to properly teach it to my kids.

I WILL paint about my dad, and it will be happy. I’ve found a middle ground again.

On the other hand, turning MS into a happy painting will be much harder. MS hasn’t been easy, it sucks, and it sucks more everyday as it progresses. I must focus on the good that has come since being diagnosed. Dean, Audrey, Julien, a home and the neighbourhood it came with. And although having to go on disability has been hard on my self worth, it has also given me the time to follow my dreams and to spend time with my children. It’s taught me to not put things off, to appreciate the simple things, to stop and smell the flowers, to empathize with others. It made me run to the other end of the continent and experience one the best memories I have, I went to Africa “before I couldn’t”, I took an extremely colourful trip to the south west of the US in order to find inspiration, and I get to share those memories with a guy that has shown me time and time again just how loving and thoughtful he truly is.
And it has led me to find my path again by painting, and writing. I feel like I’m way behind but let’s hope I’ve got lots of time to catch up. MS has challenged me like I never thought I would, and made me find strength I never knew I had.

I SHOULD be able to create some sort of happy painting from that.
But I can’t….I can’t help but think I could of had all that without the MS. It simply slowed me down and taken away more then it has given me.
I need to keep working on finding the middle ground with that one.

I’ll be ok. Ive got lots of happy memories to paint regardless of MS.