The Other Side of Your Worst-Case-Scenario

Lately, I’ve been trying really hard to “think spring.” Which means finding inspiration for springy paintings. However, this is a touch tricky when you’re living in a place where April 1st looks more like the dead of winter than well… whatever April 1st is supposed to look like.

So yesterday I was scrolling through my phone, perusing some old photos when I stumbled upon a memory from my very first trip to the edge of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (BWCA, for those that aren’t familiar with Northern Minnesota). It was August of 2017, and I wanted to go camping as a last hurrah from a summer that truly changed my life. So my mom and I packed up the SUV and off we drove to Sawbill Campground for a four day weekend.

“My Chapter” 8x10

About 5 months prior I had gone through one of the worst periods of my life. I found out an illness that I had progressed, regardless of me doing everything I could to control it, I also needed to go to treatment for some mental health issues and the cherry on top of the cake was the end of my engagement to someone I’d been with for the last 7 years. That all happened in a matter of 6 months. Yeah, all of my “worst-case-scenarios” had actually happened.

After a couple months of mourning and dragging myself through the dumpster fire that was my life, I realized something — all of my nightmares had come true, and I was still alive. I remember lying in bed one night, feeling my heart beat in my chest, and even though I felt the most forsaken I had ever felt in my entire life, and was barely able to cope with the grief, I couldn’t help but listen to my heart pumping away in my chest and whisper to my sad and lonely self, “you’re still here.”

Closeup of “My Chapter” in the studio

I had decided to move up north to my parents’ cabin in the Brainerd Lakes Area for the summer to get a fresh start. There, I worked at a summer camp for people with special needs, I made new friends, I realized I was capable of healing, I realized how resilient I was, I realized that though my life had changed drastically, I was still me. It was those three months that I started to come home to myself.

So there I stood, on the banks of Sawbill Lake at the end of that summer, staring at a cloud ahead that was fat with rain, red light on the horizon, relishing this moment of beauty and solitude and I was so damn proud of myself. I got through my worst-case-scenario, all the stuff I thought I’d never be able to survive.

Because you see here’s the thing — we never realize how strong we are until our greatest fears are realized and we actually make it out on the other side. I mean, yes I might have made it out scarred and carrying a deeply wounded heart, but at the end of the day, I was still here, living this beautiful life. Beautiful because it was mine.

The question I have to ask myself from time to time, is this: am I living to avoid my worst-case-scenario, or am I living to actually experience life?

Despite all the horrors you have faced, you are here. And your life is a beautiful one to experience, simply because it’s yours.