[19:43PM] It's been a couple months since I last posted something here, a slightly dramatic reminder dressed as a blog update. Well, guess I'm naturally more dramatic than necessary. Not much more than two months, and yet it feels like 2 years. I'm already very used to life and the surprising, chaotic periods that don't last long and don't have a special look to make them stand out from the other cycles. They are far from new. But the feeling is never the same. We ourselves are not. And I feel like a part of my brain that stored my beliefs and values had been gone through a giant, destructive storm that left everything in ruins. But it also revealed something else. Something I had forgotten, but was still there all this time. Maybe this is just me trying to see bad things that we can't predict or control as lessons, trying to see my cup as being half full instead of half empty. Maybe it's the proximity to the end of the year that always makes you review your actions and how far you have come. And what a road, né não, honey baby? Anyway, we don't need details.
Whatever it is, all the work we have done along the way has brought us here, even the small things that were overlooked by some. Growth and change didn't happen overnight, and many times we fell and it felt like it was just right to stay right there. It's always easier to deal with a devil that's already familiar. But just because you were raised in a particular hell, it does not mean that's all there is in the world. We all have the right to leave the graveyard and see the sunrise with our own eyes before we decide to believe the mantras that say that it was not made for people like us. And the funny truth is not a surprise - not now: it was made for all of us. Vish, I'm talking nonsense with nonsense again.
That reminds me that some days ago I was reading a bunch of things, from old journals of mine until the present time small creations and I had a realization: this is the first year of my life that I have not thought about destroying myself. Hard to believe now, since that was one of the things that I used to think was immutable part of me. And this was a change that was among the group I mentioned before, of the things that don't happen overnight. It was very silent, exhausting, it felt stupid and totally unreasonable sometimes. Like filling a cup with a dropper. It does not happen at the pace we want, the way we want, but it does happen. And now it seems that it's time to pause. Not because the job is done - it never is, that is not the purpose of it all. But everything has it's time. To grow, to bury, to cut off, to nourish, to uproot. Many times we have this feeling sitting on our shoulder like a very mouthy diabinho, saying that we have to run run run run run, because we are not where we are supposed to be, not where we want, not where is right. Sometimes we really are not, for various different reasons. Still, we need to take a breath and acknowledge the small victories. They are there, even if you think they are not. But you have to stop to look (just look, we're not going back). And now, we just put the sword down for a bit, and feel grateful, honor them. Honor our past selves. For the good and the bad, not comforming to everything, but accepting everything. Those are very obvious and very simple thoughts for some people, I guess. We all walk different paths. But it took me 23 years to see that. And I hope from the bottom of my heart you can see that too.

I have this painting that is probably my favorite thing I did this year. It's called "Good Ending - You can't take the stars from me" or just "Good Ending". I felt like it fits the theme. And since I still haven't finished building the gallery in here, I have nowhere else to put it. Enfim, I hope you have a nice end of the day, or, if I'm too busy to update this again, a good ending of the year. Take care ♡.