My Year Of Wonders
In July 2024 I was living alone in a tiny, sweet apartment in the cheapest big city in this country, holding my own and being, again, depressed - a light version of post traumatic after the months in the hospital and the abusive roommate thing. I was doing what I loved, aka teaching Blender and taking commissions, in a beautiful white place I could call my own, but life didn't feel safe anymore. Nothing did. I think I was alive, but not really living.
Fast forward a year; this is, simply and literally, the best time I had in my life.
The man I met on July 24th is... I couldn't believe I'd love anyone the way I did the guy who was my husband, and I don't; it's different, but no less wonderful. More, in many ways. He's many things that feel too private and sweet to list, and he's also social, and has kids, and lives closer to my friends, so suddenly I'm not alone at all.
On March dad died. He was 83. It took the past five years, a bit of therapy and then living with him for two months to understand something fundamental about my whole life.
Dad was loving, caring, warm, hugging, generous, enthusiastic and the type to gobble life up like a hungry wolf, being a father included; he never laid an improper finger on me, though he did hit me 3-4 times a year, as was customary for his and my generation. That wasn't a problem; the frequency was as described, it hurt for no more than a few seconds, and never left marks. That part I have no issue with.
But he scared the living hell out of me around once a week. I thought it was normal. I believed him when he said I was problematic, that I deserved threats, that I was overly sensitive and possibly not mentally okay. It's only this past year that I realized the impact of growing up like this: of constantly being scared that something horrible was going to happen to you, of home never being a safe place, of never feeling safe unless my parents weren't around.
It started when I stopped being a child; when I was no longer small and something to be protected, I think. The first time I remember starkly was when I was eight. He would yell horrible, scary things; roar. "You're not my daughter anymore", "They'll have to carry you out of this house on a stretcher when I'm done with you," "you're a monster", "you selfish, egocentric pig", "you're spoiled, dramatic, overbearing, pathetic, lazy parasite". He chased me down the corridor and broke down my locked door with a kick, when I was 16. He grabbed me by the upper arm and dragged me to the bathroom to roar at me for the way I hang my towel and hit me while screaming. From age ten to seventeen, when I left the family home, I was constantly scared and I didn't even know it. I was prone to crying, self-hating, feeling helpless and with zero agency on my life, and thinking it was normal for parents to be that way, and that I was the problem.
Simultaneously, he would tell me I was brilliant, talented, practical, full of potential, intelligent. It didn't occur to me that these hot-and-cold, contradictory statements were confusing. He said so, so it was the truth. The inner turmoil that followed was something I only recently learned to notice.
When I was around 25 or so, a proper grown up who was out of his immediate control, the nature of the threats changed. "I won't ever talk to you again", "I'll take away your apartment", "you ungrateful, dramatic, emo-blackmailing swine", "I'll make sure they block your bank account", "you're worthless", "you're a failure", "you have no chance in the world but me", "you have no friends", "nobody loves you", "you're making things up for attention", "you're not allowed to cry, that's selfish and manipulative and you'll smile and do as you're told", and "if you don't do as I say I'll stop taking my medicine". He would cut contact with me as punishment for months on end, for holding a political view that was different than his or for choosing to have my passport done one way and not his way. He would give me the silent treatment for hours on the phone if I contradicted him. It still had a debilitating impact, even though I was over forty.
Then he died, eight months ago, and suddenly, for the first time in my life, I had no reason to be afraid.
Dad was many good things. Generous, kind, protective. He loved me fiercely, and in times of need he'd do everything, limitless, to help - except for showing empathy or tolerating weakness. He was wonderful, admirable, but was also all of the above; I can't say whether he was a good or a bad person. People are complicated. I just know that most of my life I loved and admired my dad and couldn't imagine a world without him, and now he's dead and can't threaten me anymore, and not being scared all the time feels like a physical weight off. It's as if I can suddenly breathe.
It's been eight months since he died, and I'm flourishing. I've never felt so peaceful in my life.
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There's also the inheritance. It's not much for me to be extravagant, but it means my future's (humbly) taken care of, and my present allows for more liberty than I ever had. I first went nuts with scrapbooking materials, and then two months ago got obsessed with watercolor, and then AI came and finalized this as my Year Of Wonders.
Which I understand requires some explanation, because for us artist AI is the devil. But around two months ago I was searching for reference and then the penny dropped: AI can paint better than I ever will. I've been painting since I was six, have studied anatomy, perspective, dynamic sketching, environment sketching, color theory, design, art history, oil painting and portraiture; I've honed my (admittedly not great) talent with the need to be able to paint whatever I wanted or to 'work in the industry', either as a comic or a video game artist - and now AI does it infinitely faster, cheaper and better than me.
And suddenly I don't have to be good; there's no point. Suddenly making art lost the point I thought it had, and - here comes the magic - became something I can do just for fun, regardless of how much I suck at it.
And that feels... amazing! I paint the most embarrassing stuff. It's wonky and full of mistakes and I don't paint people because I was never good enough at it and at any case I just want to play with brushes, regardless of what the end result is. So I (badly) paint mushrooms and patterns and bottles and oh, very bad flowers, and leaves, and refuse scenery because it's not fun, and I even went as far as abstract, which I've always hated and thought it was and excuse for talentless people to play with paint, and you know what, here I am, practically talentless and in no mood for effort so I paint abstract and it's ugly and meaningless or pretty and meaningless - I mean, how ugly can you go with rainbow pastels - and I don't care. I don't need anyone to like it. I don't need to get a job, or for my fellow roleplayers to go 'omg, Bell, paint my character' or even 'this is pretty'. I have my little sketchbook 80% of which isn't even my own art because I've followed tutorials, and I'm having the time of my life.
This is my Year Of Wonders.
There is love. There is social life. There is financial stability, and there is nobody calling me nasty belittling names every day, or threatening me; there is no fear. There is, however, a crippled cat that's the cutest thing ever and my current goal in life is to learn to tend to his bladder (he can't on his own, and my boyfriend has been manually voiding the cat's bladder and bowels for the past four years). I still fail at that, but, unlike painting, that goal does feel meaningful.
This year I also accepted the fact that I'm obese, a lot thanks to the kids - my nephew, and my boyfriend's eleven years old son, both of whom find me very comfortable to cuddle with, or awesome because I can make the car bounce when I dance in my seat. Having spent around a decade avoiding socializing because I was embarrassed due to being fat, this did wonders - so thanks to the kids, I even went to the big geek convention in October (it was wonderful, I got to meet my favourite translator and watch Twisted on stage), and just spent a whole weekend in a mini roleplaying convention in a hotel up north, with forty other people some of which I've not seen since that LARP twenty five years ago.
I'm fat, I don't Blender (I think I enjoy the physical paint too much right now), I miss my online community and that gone best friend - and yet life right now is the best I could imagine. And even now the cat is next to me, licking his belly and ignoring his hind legs (he has no idea they exist) and giving me drowsy, loving, trusting looks.
I'm in peace.
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