I don’t recall exactly when I discovered the gift of painting with a dirty brush, but it’s all I do now (when I paint). It’s one of the many drawbacks to being self-taught – I learn mostly by trial and error, and pure chance. I must have been distracted and reached for another color, before cleaning my brush, and saw how much more real the leaves looked (I paint A LOT of leaves). I was hooked.

There is the risk of doing too much and muddying the colors to the point that the gorgeous blending of colors I like so well is lost, but I’m learning that fine line. Or trying to.

It occurred to me how learning to accept myself – my age, my flaws, my past – is similar to embracing the beauty of painting with a dirty brush. Again, as someone untrained, trying to paint anything realistic or specific is simply beyond my abilities. But I think I can “Monet” something with the best of amateurs. Layering, deepening color, turning mistakes into accents; not unlike my life right now.

It’s the definition of what I’ve claimed as my life’s mantra or goal: making something of everything I’ve been given. Most of what I have and where I am is not by choice. Some is happy accident. Some serendipity. Some from giving away my map and entrusting my future to a career or partner unwilling or incapable of making decisions in the best interest of us both.

Now it’s all fodder to be made into something new and better. I am committed to layering, deepening and reworking my life’s plot twists into “happy accidents.” I’m done trying to clean my brush, enjoying what my dirty brush creates.

I’ve gifted a few of my paintings to friends and family I know will love them like refrigerator art – not necessarily for their quality, but for the effort I put into them. I suppose my next challenge is learning to see the value and talent others tell me they see in my work. Swallowing hard and putting what I paint or make or craft into the world – perhaps even some day as a proudly claimed vocation, instead of my tendency to label them just part of an avocation for my own enjoyment and mental health.

But I swear it’s okay if that never happens. It’s an external calling, prompted by others’ encouragement that I believe is clouded by their desire to support me, not necessarily their ability to gauge what is marketable and will appeal to people who don’t know me. My internal calling is still to find peace in making ends meet in a way that doesn’t crush my soul, but doesn’t have to be what gets me out of bed in the morning. My joy, my meaning, my peace will come from the parts of my life I have some sway over – never again reliant on someone else valuing me or what I have to give.