Finding "Me", and loving her.

If there was a painting titled “Plain Girl on a White Canvas” and it was a black paint outline of a girl on just a plain white canvas, my 20 year old self writing this post right now would not buy it. However, the young and insecure 6th grade me would have spent every last penny she had to have a copy of that basic painting.

What I am trying to articulate through this analogy is I have never been that plain girl on a white canvas, but for a while, years actually, I tired to be. I was a follower. I was so insecure. I had very little confidence in who I was, what I looked like, how smart I was, and how much I had to offer the world and those around me. In 6th grade, I would have chosen to be the 15th print of a “Plain Girl on a White Canvas” hanging in a room with 15 pieces of art titled “Plain Girl on a White Canvas.” Rather than be the painting titled “Me” hanging alone in another room in the gallery.

You see, I saw beauty in everyone else but me. I thought everyone else was more valuable. That every other girl was more beautiful, smarter, funnier, had better clothes. And if they weren’t funny, because you can’t have it all, then they were double smart or double stylish. My eyes perceived everyone else to be so bright that when I finally went to look at myself, my pupils were too small to recognize that my light was equally as bright I just couldn’t see it because by that time the sun had gone down and I was never patient enough to let my eyes adjust. If I was buying one of the 15 “Plain Girls on a White Canvas”, I would have paid double for any of the 14 and practically nothing for mine.

As I navigated though the gallery of life I realized the rooms I loved the most, was most attracted to, that radiated the most beauty, and the paintings I really aspired to have and be like were the ones that filled the room while hanging alone, that expressed genuine feelings, revealed deep thoughts, were easy to connect to and hard to look away from. The paintings that the longer you admired them the more beauty that was revealed to you. The pieces of art that used and appreciated dark colors but invoked bright and positive messages.

“Me” currently hangs in a beautiful and highly respected gallery in Chestnuthill Massachusetts, but she does move around between many different galleries. Her colors are bright, her laugh is loud, her style is unique and her energy can be felt from other rooms. From a quick glance she looks two dimensional but when you get closer you can see so many different layers underneath. You may even be able to see snippets of her story but only she knows the entirety of the tale. If you get close enough you may be able to see a black outline where a plain girl on a white canvas used to be. I love that layer of the artwork too because the art that you see now is built on that white canvas where a plain and insecure girl once laid. She is still there but now she is more than just a plain girl, and you can barely tell there was once a white canvas underneath her.

Love Always,

Casey

Painting by Stephanie Saunders