LOVE THE LIFE YOU LIVE, LIVE THE LIFE YOU LOVE - Original and prints available

Summer 2013 - This painting is my view of our “mid-life crisis”.  Entering my 49th year soon and having many friends who have already officially entered their “mid-life”; I see a pattern and themes as we all struggle to redefine and understand who we are and how we got where we are. Can we handle the changing seasons of our lives?? 

In our 20’s we are like a rocket ship, propelled by our ambition and dreams, in our 30s we are propelled by hard work and looking to achieve earthly goals. Then suddenly in our 40s, we wake up and look in the mirror and think “WHO is that person staring back at me?” 

We can justify  and define ourselves with labels, “I’m a devoted mother, a loving wife, a fair boss, a dedicated employee, a trusted advisor, a struggling artist, a spastic homemaker, a successful career woman, a compassionate pet owner, a yogi”  but then sometimes we look again in that mirror and ask, “REALLY who is that person staring back at me?”  

Many people reach this point in their mid 40s where that rocket ship is no longer propelled by young ambition, and our dreams we had in our 20s have fallen to the wayside.  We can’t figure out how to propel that rocket anymore and we start to float, float along, in space.  Then some folks create their own implosion/explosion searching for that energy to propel them forward (divorce, affair, job change/quit job, move, buy a new red car, take a sabbatical to go to a foreign land).  Sometimes that self made propulsion has a negative impact on those around them, and sometimes, as in my case, that “explosion” happened to me and I had little control over it.  It was called CANCER, and it happened to my husband and left a huge gaping hole in my family and in our hearts. 

The question is will I let a landslide bring me down?  In this painting, the focus is partly on that swirling energy as and it is propelling my rocket ship UPWARD toward blue skies because I believe that with my loss, I should focus on what I have gained.  I’ve gained perspective and am working through what my new normal, my new life without husband, father, partner, confidant, lover will be like.  Regardless of loss, I truly want to “Live the life I love, and love the life I live” - what more can I strive for??