My Journey: From Darkness to Canvas - Finding Healing Through Art

When I was a young girl in elementary and middle school, I was considered gifted. I was in the national honor society, top reader, made good grades, was in all the advanced classes, and was very creative. I was a little shy and awkward but I always had at least one good friend. It looked like I was going to have a bright future with the path I was on, but all that changed with my parents' divorce.

Teen Angst going Hard

Now I know that being a child of divorce is not uncommon and for most kids it's a rough year of transition but everyone is happier in the end. The divorce I experienced was not that. It was full of fighting and violence, ridiculous public displays of anger, arrests, drugs, a vicious rumor mill at school, and days where the only food I had to eat was from school. Needless to say this sent me down a spiral of teen angst, drinking, and skipping class. I went from a promising future at a good college to barely graduating.

There was a snowball of bad choices after that, but in the end I was always able to take care of myself. I worked full time and had my own place at 17. I was determined to still make something of myself and finally had some peace. This is when I started painting for the first time and going to college. Things were finally going my way, and then I found out I was pregnant, with twins. I no longer painted and had to take a year off from going back to school because I was on bed rest.

As soon as I could I started classes back up and when the twins were a year old I started waitressing part time. I was with the boys' dad at the time but like most teenage relationships, this one didn't last and when the boys were two I moved out with them. We lived in a duplex with roommates.

Finding Love and Loss

This is when I met the man I thought I was going to be with for the rest of my life. He was tall, handsome, the life of the party and quite a bit older than me. I may have went a little wild with him in the beginning. I'm only in my early 20's at this point and hadn't had a chance to be free and young, so when the boys were with their dad, I lived like I had no kids.

Graduating at 26

Now all the while this is going on I'm still going to college full time and I am also waitressing full time now, with two young kids. Things got more serious with the man I was with, Seth, and we rented a house together and his two sons would come stay with us. Seth and I worked together at the same restaurant, we were both taking college classes and Seth even had a second job. Between working, school, and kids, we were busy but happy.

Then I got pregnant again, with our daughter. With that pregnancy and her birth our relationship seemed to start to unwind. We went through a very rough patch that I don't want to go into. In the end he wanted to stay with me and we did still love each other but I think even more than that he loved his daughter.

Things started looking up when I finally graduated and got a job as an elementary teacher. Seth also got a new job as a restaurant manager and we were finally able to move into a nice house in a nice neighborhood, and for the first time I didn't qualify for any government assistance and I was so proud of us for making it.

But it wasn't long until my whole world came crashing down. Seth had been hiding a deep depression that led to him taking his own life. I will not go into the details. I have never felt pain like that only to go completely numb soon after.

Finding My Way Back

I cannot say that I handled those events well. I cannot say I made healthy choices. I started skydiving during this time. It was the only time I could feel anything. And there is something to be said about being forced to save your own life over and over to show you that you really don't want to die.

You'll never look at the sky the same after a skydive

I also met Blaine at this time and he loved me through all my pain and anger. He accepted me and my kids. He watched me go through a terrible depression. To this day I have no idea why he thought putting up with me would be worth it but I'm glad he did.

He got me back into painting. He would paint with me even though it was not a passion of his, just because he could see that it was helping to heal me. During this time I'm still teaching but it is beginning to wear me down. I never worked through any of these things from my past and I especially did my best to hide from the pain of Seth's death and spent most of my time being mad at him. But I was giving every little bit I had left to my students and my own kids were beginning to suffer from it. I had nothing left to give.

The Healing Power of Art

Blaine saw this and supported me through leaving my career. He stepped up and took over paying the bills, while I went on a journey of self healing and love and learning to paint. A year later I felt awake for the first time in a long time. I took the time to sit with all the things in my past that had hurt me and let them go.

I started selling paintings and taking on commissions. I got into a local gallery. I have a better relationship with my kids and my family. Everything seemed perfect but I could see that it wasn't quite perfect for Blaine. I wanted to find a way that we could both spend our lives doing what we loved.

Blaine and I Before the plane took off

We came across an opportunity to live at a drop zone where Blaine could pack parachutes and learn to be a rigger. Literally his dream! We had to jump on this opportunity. We are currently in the process of making it all happen. We get to live in a tiny house on a farm with our daughter and both work at our dream jobs. I get to be an artist and he gets to be at an airport all day. I swear it doesn't seem real.

Looking Forward

Now that you know a little more about me and how I got to where I am today, I hope you will be interested to follow along with my journey. I plan on writing blogs about the drop zone, and farm life and I would love to post a blog about my year of healing and how you can see that growth through my paintings.

With each painting I learned a little more about myself. It was like a mirror into my soul and I began to love myself. Creating really is magic.

Thank you for reading, Love you!

Mandi