How Would It Be?

How would it be? What would my life be if I did what I wanted? If I followed my dream when I found it? I knew what it was. Even when I was five I knew. When I picked a crayon and drew my first line. I knew what it was. I knew when it was time to pick a high school, an it was the art school I chose. Or did I choose? Or did I know, simply knew without having to consider?

I didn’t go to art school, I did not enroll into the art academy when the time came to go to college. Even though I knew. But I couldn’t stand this knowledge then. How could I, when drawing was heart-wrenchingly painful, when one imperfect line would send my crayons flying to the floor, would have me crumble into bed, in tears, in … I don’t know. I don’t know what I felt then, but it hurt and I couldn’t bear this pain.

But how would it be if I could? How would it be if the pain didn’t stop me then? Would I be happy? Would I feel strong and loved, happy with myself, happy with my life? I would be a great painter, o yes, I have the talent, the ability. This is not boasting but a fact, I do, but would it be enough? Would it be enough, this talent, to compensate for years of adventure, experiences, growing, climbing, falling, building, collapsing?

Could the paintings I would paint then replace the five years I spent learning about human mind, and all the years after, that I spent learning about human soul? Would my art take me all the way across the ocean? Would it help me to meet the wizard? Would it introduce me to my husband?

Would the art heal the pain, the fear, the darkness, the trauma that I traveled through for so many years? Or would I become one of those tortured artists, the sick geniuses who paint their masterpieces in loneliness, who create from pain and despair, drunk, drugged, alone?

How would it be? I wondered one day when lying in my bath, and the thought came unexpected: I think I’d like to take a drawing class.

At thirty four this thought came. Twenty years after I buried it. Twenty years after I wanted to go to art school, and didn’t. I buried the thought, I buried the wish, I buried what I knew and forgot it. I had another life instead. I learned about the human mind and I learned about my soul. I grew stronger and calmer, happy and loved. I walked through the pain and confronted my trauma and now I am here, and it is not too late.

I haven’t lost those years, I haven’t missed my time. It is not too late to be what I want. It is never too late when I am here, right now, with my dream.