…I got up, made coffee, and read a book that made me cry, and let me know I would be okay…
Dearhearts…
[This is a post that I wrote for my Patrons at Patreon today, but it felt right to share it with all of you as well because being transparent about living and working with mental health struggles and thanking those who are helping me is very important to me.]
It is very windy and looks like it will storm any minute and it is cold and I am still afraid, but I am a little better. I am better because I just read a book that cracked the whole world open for me, and made me cry, and it was so beautiful I somehow knew that I would be okay. I bought the book for my Kindle but the way I like to read this kind of book is to open it in the Kindle reader on the big computer so it is on the whole screen and easy to see and you can just be one with a book you are in love with. Everyone needs this book. Some day when I can afford it I am going to get the hardcover too so I can hold it. The book is…
The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse by Charlie Mackesy. [I am not an amazon affiliate, I make no money for sharing the link. I simply put the link here so you can find it with ease.]
Oh goodness…
Well I think I will keep reading it off and on all day and for many days to come. I was interested because it is so highly rated and people rave about it and say it is a work of art — it is — but the book has so much heart, and love, and compassion and kindness, and somehow it helped me better understand how to put Maisie’s book together.
And now instead of all the things (I have been writing about inviting back into my life “all the things” meaning all of my creative pursuits, and I know I will be doing them too, but right now Maisie’s story is welling up in me and I need to write it and paint it.) Maisie’s story is more and more my story and as it has been welling up in me tears have run down my cheeks. I am so afraid. I do have a story to tell, and it is sad and scary and courageous and honest and important (for me and I hope for others) and I am so moved by it all, at the tender Maisie part of me that made it through so much abuse and a fire and hurricanes and a lifelong battle with mental illness and somehow patched together a life that works for me, even if few people understand it, that I am overcome by it all, but I will write it and draw it and paint it, picture by picture, and as Maisie has her imaginary friends who are spirit guides and helpers and muses, I, too, have mine, and they will lead me through all of this.
I had to write this post today for all of you, here, my dear Patrons, because it is with your support, both financially, and even more important, I’ve come to understand, the support I am receiving by the very fact that you are here, believing in me and my work, lifts me up more days than you can imagine, gives me faith and confidence in myself and in my ability to do this, and that makes me cry too. I have felt so alone and so without hope for so long. You all have given me a reason to hope again.
I wasn’t going to but I think I need to make this post public because I think, or rather I really want, people who follow my work to know and to understand that this is a very serious journey for me, to understand that this Patreon world is saving me and making Maisie possible. And now I am crying again, I can’t stop. I feel so fragile, so vulnerable, but I will not stop, I never have, not for long anyway, and I will do this work.
Thank you for being here with me, for listening when I am afraid, for commenting and saying the lovely supportive things that you have and do because I need that support so badly and today I am holding on to your kind words as if they were life rafts that will keep me from sinking down and down and down. My tears and my heart are so heavy just now, but I think if I paint I will feel better.
Thank you. Thank you so much. Hold my hand, will you?
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