beauty for ashes

This is a sadder story then I meant it to be, then I ever wanted to write or intended to share. I’ll give you a spoiler out right, it has a happy ending, and still it feels like such a sad story to me. They can see the beauty in my ashes but all I see is fire. 


I started in on the edits for my book, I marked up the first draft and now I’m creating the second draft. But I got all of two pages in and it got to me. I don’t always embrace change the way I ought to. I’m a messy human, I’m not ashamed or embarrassed by all the mistakes and editing that my book needs, I think I’m horrified by how revealing the story is. How clear a mirror it puts to me. 


One thing you should know about me as a writer is that when it comes to stories, I’ll put my character through hell but I’ll never not give them a happy ending. I live by the belief that in the end it will be okay and if its not okay than its not the end, so I apply that to my story telling as well. So in all fairness knowing that it’s not really a spoiler to say this story I am currently working on has a happy ending.  


But the editing got to me in a way I wasn’t expecting. I had such fun writing it to begin with and I enjoyed myself in my read-through, so when I sat down to edit and I wanted to cry it took me by surprise. I knew the story could be sad, I wrote it after all, but it struck me full on. I think I could see it for how someones else might see it and well I’m not quite sure it just struck me. I know I’m not making much sense but with process sometimes that’s just how it goes. 


I have these two paintings, trust me this is relevant, the first I painted four or five years ago the second I’m still working on. These two paintings have two things in common. Firstly I painted them both out of stark grief and agony that demanded be expressed, secondly those that have looked at said paintings love them and almost find them comforting or wonder-inspiring. At first it bothered me, that people could see my pain and find it beautiful, now I’m still not quite sure how I feel about it. The hopeful part of me, the childlike part, clings to a hope that if others can find beauty in my art and pain than perhaps I’m not too far gone, I can still be… something. 


So this story I’m working on, that was born of grief without my conscious permission, will probably look far sadder to me than anyone else and that’s for the best. However it doesn’t make it any less difficult to write. 


It’s a sadder story then I meant it to be, and I might never be able to see it as anything but that, but it’s not without hope. And one day maybe I’ll see ashes where I still see fire, and then maybe one day after that I’ll see beauty too. 

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