I had a long jammed packed business day yesterday. It started earlier than usual and ended around 6:30. As I was driving home I crossed over the highway and saw the most spectacular sunset. The beauty actually brought tears to my eyes.
I thought it seemed somehow familiar to me so fiery and so many colors.
I realized that it looked like a sunset that I helped paint for a high school play. I think I told this story before when I was in a painful place. How the art teacher whom I idolized asked myself and another student to paint a sunset.
We were so thrilled an honored that she picked us to paint it. We stayed up all night and painted a bright orange sunset with every color you could imagine. The colors represented who we were inside, a little outrageous a little outside the box.
When the curtain came up she had gotten one of the more talented inside the box artist to paint a foggy gray sunset. I quit taking art classes after that. I respected her and figured I must not be good enough to be a real artist.
It took m 20 years to start painting with that same enthusiasm.
It wasn't personal I know that now. As a teenager I took to heart and held it there and then carried all those years. Seems absurd now it was just her opinion but then it was my opinion of myself that kept it alive.
Yesterday I thought there's my sunset with every color imaginable painted with abandonment by God for all the world to see. A bigger audience than any high school play would ever have.
It is tough to see through the opinions of others and come out feeling good. Believing strongly in myself has not come until these past few years in Al-Anon. And even now, I still have doubts.
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