Unveiling
A while ago, I was having a few drinks with some friends when the question was asked, what makes a complete person? Damn… what a question!
Oddly enough the guy who asked it had the intention of a very powerful conversation, one of which I think I make a great subject matter for.
I grew up in a loving family with 3 brothers, Mum and Dad took care of us thankfully more than most kids get in a lifetime. On this side of this love, I was thrown quite a few curve balls. It started with liver failure, which progressed to leukemia. After that I was silly enough to join the military and following that I had a range of terrible jobs, one being in a hospital, that gave me a great perspective on the hardship of many others.
This being said, in my life there was a balance of love and trauma. Having both of these in my life gave me a greater balanced perspective on what I can expect from life. I know how to take a big hit, but I also have the ability to receive the support I need to get through the hardship.
As this conversation continued, it started to become clear that people who we knew who had only experienced trauma really struggled to receiving love and those who we knew who had only experienced love struggled intensely with tiny hardships in their everyday life.
It really started to become clear to me that a balance was everything and welcoming both love and trauma into my life was incredibly important.
Looking back on this conversation it became even clearer to me how important that the trauma in my life was. Almost to the point that I want to welcome more of it to gain my lessons faster.
So I went about creating a concept that would best represent this feeling. Naturally I fell back on my love of reflecting on life as a game of chess. Using my characters who are the game, I wanted it to be ripping us apart, but from the ripping is coming an abundance of beauty and it is her friends doing it for her.
I rely on the people around me for honesty. Not that I will take it all in at once, but I want it to be my friends who are the ones peeling away my layers, exposing the beauty that can be tapped from life’s negative and positive experiences.