It's often about the simple things, isn't it? Painting and photography are first about seeing, they say. Writing is about observing. Technique is secondary. Sometimes the simple is the most difficult.

I had accepted that all the dark memories were mine. But I had never realized that the beautiful ones were mine too. I had a right to them. And the right to embrace them, regardless of what happened before and after. I had a right to my happiness, as well as my grief.

I have stopped painting. I stand in front of the easel, brush in hand, but my mind is blank. It is as if I have been struck by a strange kind of blindness.

...I still saw everything through the filter I had created in order to survive. I could not see the happiness that preceded the abyss. I had forced myself not to acknowledge my life's most splendid moment, in order to be able to live out the rest of my life without it. I think that was what had happened. It has changed since, but back then it was impossible for me to embrace the happiness I had lost.