All This Time

What courage looks like

Hi MJ,

I'm so sorry if I haven't written in the past few days. It's been a surprisingly busy half of the week, and I kept getting sidetracked by real life.

So yes, real life. Remember in one of your letters when we talked about what being courageous looked like for us? I've been thinking about what you said there for a while now, and I realized that you're right. That's how my life has been for a while now—maybe even almost my whole life. Being the youngest in my family meant that many things have been handed to me; I kind of just followed that path. Why resist, right, when it's just there? I don't think it's wrong that we learn to receive and accept, but as you said, there is courage in making choices for ourselves, too. Maybe even more, because we are never guaranteed a great outcome in life when we do that, right?

I'm talking in circles, but the courageous choice I made last weekend—and the cause of the delay of this letter, really—was actually going to a watercolor workshop. There was one here last weekend—did you know about that? It was a beginners' class, and we all learned how to paint landscapes and gradients. I don't think I'll leave my corporate job for this because I wasn't very good at it, but it was fun.

And I think I enjoyed it even more because I was with a...friend. I think I had more fun watching her have fun. And if she'd let me, I'd like to keep making that courageous choice to watch her have fun.

Now that I think about it—were you there at the workshop? I mean, you also live here, right? And that's also your thing! If I had known, maybe we could've met up and finally gotten to know each other in person!

How's your art going?

C