Real art takes courage, okay? And honesty…

It really was nothing she didn't already know. 

When she was small she'd sit for hours with a box of Crayolas.  After she'd finished she'd carefully tear out her favorite pages.  Her mom would always make a huge deal as she pinned them on the refrigerator.

Each one was perfect, neat and contained.  All her life, she'd colored inside the lines.

She'd always followed someone else's blueprint.  In the beginning it was because she'd been afraid to disappoint her parents, later, she'd been afraid to disappoint Roy. 

Now, at long last she's finally gotten around to what's most important. She's afraid she'll disappoint herself and it's terrifying. 

This whole year has been a nightmare.  Calling off her wedding had been hard enough - and now leaving Roy again was not going to be easy at all.  If that's what she actually decided to do.  She still wasn't sure.  She could kick herself for being so stupid, for being so desperate, for giving him hope when there really was none.  She could still see his face, he really was trying so hard but tonight had just reinforced what she already knew.

He simply didn't understand.

He never had.  He didn't understand that tonight wasn't about whether or not he showed up, or who he came with, or whether or not he thought what she'd created was "pretty."  This was something she'd done for herself, not for anyone else.  Not for Roy and not even for Jim.    Tonight was about the fact that she had opened a door she had closed so many years ago, how she'd let something important to her slip away and how she went back to find it. 

Maybe it wasn't perfect - maybe it wasn't honest - but it had taken courage.  

She glances around her apartment and it occurs to her it's the first thing she'd had that's actually all her own.   She picked out the paint for the walls, placed the furniture where she wanted it, filled the fridge with only the things she liked to eat.

It was hers, every square foot, every knick-knack and every framed print on the wall - all of it.

And that was something wasn't it? 

So she wasn't an Impressionist.  So she wasn't Picasso.  So what?  It doesn't matter what everyone else thinks - it matters what she thinks.   It doesn't matter what everyone else wants, it matters what she wants.  She just keeps forgetting that.

Sometimes she thinks she likes it this way.  This way the what ifs can stay in her mind and she doesn't have to hear what she dreads the most.  That he's really over her, that he's really moved on. That he's not in love with her anymore. 

If she never says anything, she'll never have to know. 

If she never says anything, she'll never know.

Right now, as she sits with her obviously mediocre attempt at art spread out on the table before her she's trying to figure out which is worse.