When you're playing with fire someone's bound to get burned

But if you don't play with fire, you'll never get heat...
*~~*
I've been through a lot over the past 12 months, and all of it seemed to culminate into a maelstrom of negative emotions over the past week. Just when everything in my life started to look like it was going to start getting easier everything took a turn for the uncertain on Tuesday. Not only was my personal life thrown into uncertainty, but I was dropped into a new work-situation with almost no warning. Shit got real, again. What separated this past week from the hardships of the last year was how directly I was involved.

I didn't just help facilitate the fire, I practically lit the flame. Time will tell what the flames will touch, but as I stand in the glow of the fire I realize....

I'd do it all over again if I had to.

*~~*

This was a bit of vent-art as I tried to work through all those emotions over the past week. The painting itself was mostly fueled by existential rage, moral quandary, ethical uncertainty, deep personal revelation, emotional upheaval, and three shots of Tequila.

The painting (really more of a gesture-painting than anything else) only took about 2 1/2 hours. For the first hour or so I worked solely in grayscale, and then I adjusted the colors, picked a few that I liked, and started smooshing pixels around. It felt good, helped me think through a lot of the problems I was having at the time, and let me vent what was going on in my head.

Everything is calming down now - I don't think my livelihood or home are in direct danger any more. There is still a big question mark lying over my long-term goals, but time heals all wounds - even deep, emotional burns - and since no bridges have been touched I think it's safe to assume that my needs for the immediate future are taken care of.