All That Is Left Behind

Chapter 1

We all have this ideal of what normalcy is, and generally, all see ourselves as normal. I was this way once. It’s only halfway down a downward spiral that you start to realise what’s really going on. It’s only when the uncredible as occur that it sinks in how mundane it can be. It’s to the simplest people that the wildest stories occur, but you only learn this once you live it.

It was late when I came home.

After I walked the dog, ate, and changed clothes, I went to my tiny studio and looked at the unfinished painting.

I sat on my stool and spent half an hour mixing paints and trying to get back exactly the colours I had been using. Then I looked back to my original sketch, did a few tweaks, and went back to touching up on the water at the bottom left of the canvas. It took me nearly a full hour to get my creative juices flowing, and I had no more than half an hour of actual productive painting, until I had to but everything down, close the tubs, wash the pan and brushes. In the end, I took nearly as much time setting up and cleaning after, than I had time to actually paint, and I was wasting so much paint, by washing so often, but I was working two jobs, seven days a week, and I didn’t have anymore time to give to my passion.

I actually dropped painting altogether for months, until I whipped myself back into shape and started again, to burn out a month or two later, until I’d force myself to do it again, repeating in an endless circle.

If I didn’t discipline myself, I would have stopped completely, but every time this thought came, it terrified me, as I realised how few little happiness I allowed myself.

This city was ridiculously expensive, and my small apartment was still beyond my means. I had managed to find one with this tiny room that I rented out from time to time to help pay my bills, and would use it as a makeshift art studio in between roommates.

I would then move my painting supplies to my own small bedroom, but then it would smell like paint day and night.

Still, I had been lucky with this apartment, it was a former storage facility that had been transformed into a flat, and it was more space than I would have been able to afford if I had a good view, or cross breeze, or luminosity. But there was a nice little park nearby and the block was relatively safe, even late, and there were plenty of public transportation options.

But I still needed the two jobs to pay for the rent, and food, and all the essentials, leaving me with little spare money, and my painting hobby was becoming a little too expensive for my means. No matter how much good bargain paints I manage to snatch, or that I made my own canvas.

I didn’t date, I didn’t go to bars, I shopped my clothes in second-hand stores, and furniture on Craigslist in the donation section. I would scrooge every cent I could, yet it was barely enough to stay afloat, and I was left with mostly two options, leave the city for somewhere cheaper to live in, but with less work opportunity, or find some better paying job and stay here.

My knees creaked painfully as I got up, and my legs, swollen like sausages, were painful and clumsy. It was what happened when I sat on a tiny uncomfortable stool for nearly two hours after working on my feet for ten. It was terrible for my blood circulation. I should find something better than this stool, but I had to surf the internet for ages to find something free and decent that wasn’t too far for me to go and pick it up using public transport. People would not like me to move a love seat through the metro system.

I felt old.

I walked gingerly and I finished washing in the sink.

I had to shower, but my legs didn’t feel like they could manage a shower, and I decided to indulge in a bath.

The tub was much too small, but at least I had a tub, which was impressive in this section of the city, without needing a six-figure salary to pay for rent.

I let myself soak long enough for part of the swelling to go down, then walked the dog again, and went straight to bed.

I had changed a shift with one of my colleagues that needed a day off for some appointments, so on Monday I had done a fourteen-hour shift, but, that meant that today I only had a half shift.

It had been a really long time since I had been able to enjoy the afternoon sun, and I decided to indulge in a rare moment of luxury as I took my dog to the park and sat down on a blanket to scribble.

I liked observing life around me. It was my best drawing exercise and I used to draw two to ten pieces every day of people and things I observed. While doing this, I had improved tremendously, and it had been one of my gateways to art.

If I could start my days, scratching paper for at least half an hour, I would feel better all day long.

I had promised myself, I would keep that habit for the rest of my life as it became my daily therapy session, but life had other plans.

When you first go to college, you leave with your head full of dreams and ideas of what the adult world is. A lot of it is an idolised version of reality. We want to save the world and make it a better place. We’ve been told all our youth that if you applied yourself enough, you can do anything.

And then reality smacks you on the forehead pretty hard. Bills, responsibilities, and trying to make your social life survive the clash with school and work.

It’s a bit of a tough awakening, and it takes a little while to sink in, but it eventually does.This belongs © NôvelDra/ma.Org.

I knew how hard the reality of the life of an artist was supposed to be, but I went to art school regardless. I thought I could find some work as a graphic designer or something along that line and paint in my off time, marry the two for a while until I could focus on the latter some more.

The reality was that the more I did boring logos and uninspiring projects, the more I grew to dislike what had been my raison d’être for so long.

And then images stopped appearing in my head. I drew nothing but blanks.

I had the skills to do this, and the pay was a bit better than retail, but not by much, and I grew more and more tired of it.

Growing to dislike art was the worst for me, and I decided that I preferred doing less of it, and having less income at a more boring job, than just doing various font choice for a construction business logo.

It was not an unworthy job, it was a good job, just not one for me.

So I quit, and now, technically, I have a degree that has led me to no additional income, which so many had warned me of. But deep down I didn’t regret studying art. It had, actually, been some of the best years of my life, despite everything. It was an experience that I could not forsake, but it had been an expensive one, and now I was paying for that choice.

Maybe I should have become a doctor or something.

I was considering going back to school, maybe taking evening classes in something that would take me six months to a year of studies to get me a relatively decent job, maybe not a doctor’s level of income, but at least better than this.

It would be a good start, and my frugality has allowed me to pile a bit of money aside. Plus I had managed to sell two paintings on Etsy, money that I hadn’t touched so that I could do something better

out of my life.

I wanted something more, not just financially, but saving every penny didn’t make social life easy, nor dating.

When you keep telling ‘no’ to people because you can’t afford the activities they’re proposing, after a while, you stop getting propositions, and there are only so many things one can do without spending money.

Today, I was doing one of those, clearly not the best for my social life, but it was great for my mind and soul.

I drew faces of passersby, I drew my dogs frolicking in the grass joyfully, I drew a building, and whatever else I could find to draw. Not all the most interesting subjects, but at least working my drawing muscles a bit.

It was as I was silently observing the world that I notice a lone child, going in circles and looking around in desperation.