Broken Brushstrokes: Restoring My Artistic Self This New Year

As the new year approaches, I’ve started to think about the accomplishments and defeats I’ve faced this year. Unfortunately, the defeats column seems to be winning this year, but why? What’s changed and caused me to lose so much of myself? It turns out, it’s my art.

Art takes many forms: paintings, sculptures, and gifts, among others. But my art is special; it embodies every single one of those forms while undeniably conveying a single message. And that message is who I am in my entirety, regardless of the abundance of defeats I’ve faced. I realize now that the greatest defeat I’ve faced this year is losing my art, and getting it back is exactly what I plan to do.

My goal this new year is to get my art back. Whether it be through splattering my bedroom’s wall with vivid splashes of multicolored paint or finding bits of rolled and flattened clay stuck in my hair at night, I will do anything and everything to retrieve the light that once brightened my whole life. That light will outweigh every bullet point in my defeat column and bring me back to who I want to be: myself.

I see that girl come back briefly when working on artistic school projects, but she fades away just as quickly when she puts that paintbrush down. This year, I’m going to make sure that the paintbrush stays in my hand and that my easel stays up in my room because, no matter what the defeats are, I want to stay me. And art is my way of doing it.