Here we go. Sliding into the new year. Leaving 2019 behind us but taking along the lessons and the scars it left us with. It is weird to think about the person I was exactly one year ago. She was so much smaller. Bigger on the inside. But so much smaller in stature and life. So uncertain and scared of herself more than anything else. Though today, I still have a pretty firm grasp on uncertainty and terror, though this is a whole new kind of both.
I spent a lot of time this year reflecting. Looking back. Reading old entries. Taking my first steps into this person I am becoming. This person who, it seems, I’ve always been. But always so cowardly and confined, she never came out.
This year. 2019. Fuck.
I started it, as years often start. With a promise. A resolution. To myself. And who would have thought that Amanda actually kept a promise she made herself? Well. I did it. To some degree. Though Starlight is still unfinished. In fact, I had not touched it for three months because of poisonous words.
But. The point here. Is that I started 2019 telling myself I would write. and I would create. and I would make art.
And now. I sit here. A published author and a commissioned artist.
Mostly it was luck. Mostly it was me finally letting go of fear. It was being inspired. Finding the right people can change your life. It can open your eyes and allow you to see yourself. A little more clearly.
Not to take away anything from myself. Because most of this was me. Doing life. For me. For my kids to witness the ability to do things you love so passionately. To make real your dreams. I did the things I did this year. Because I needed to. To breathe again. Or maybe for the first time as myself. My real me. My truth coming out into the world and feeling the warmth of starlight for the first time.
There are some things that wont be discussed. Some things that are not mine alone to share.
But. What I can say. What I am willing. Is that the things I have experienced this year…that girl—one year ago—she never ever thought they would happen.
This year I broke a lot things. Including barriers around myself. I let new people in. I shoved some out. I broke into many many bouts of uncontrollable sobbing. I laughed until it hurt. I hurt until I laughed (yes that is a thing).
I traveled. I networked. I loved. I lost.
Mostly. I lived. Even just a little. But a little felt immense.
I sat in awe of so many sunsets over the Oregon Coast. Where I also cried a lot.
There were a lot of tears this year, ok.
In my reflection. In my reading. In my writing. I found things. Pieces of me. Of myself. My past. My present.
Some of them dark. Darker than I wanted to remember. When sadness and depression were so heavy I could see nothing else. Some things I harbor some shame for feeling about myself. Things I did to myself that have left their marks.
Going back to that place was difficult. It weighed heavily on my heart. I wanted to reach through time and show that girl these new pieces. These things. This person that she wanted so badly to be. They were not only possible but so close to becoming her reality.
That’s me. Though I’m still in the process of everything. My messy life turned upside down and inside out. I am faced for the first time in my existence, a future that is a blank space. Pure uncertainty. Taunting. Blinking. Cursor.
And frankly, I am fucking terrified.
But these pieces. Broken and scattered across the earth as they may be. Many of them missing or too jagged for me to imagine anyone getting in close enough without getting cut. These pieces, the ones collected in words…I didn’t know what to do with them. Leave them to rot and lost in the nothingness from which they were born? It was suggested by a lovely gal on Twitter that I collect them, sort them, apply markers and stickers, and publish the bastards. Naturally, I fucking loved the idea.
And so I am doing just that. Taking it, perhaps, a few measures further.
Not just these old broken off bits. But new ones too. Growth. Me. Then. Now.
I want to include those old pieces. The fractures. The pain. The darkness. Growth is painful. Looks like destruction. Sometimes it actually requires some things falling apart. The wrong things will. To make room for the right ones. Not that I have any idea what the right things actually are. Not right now. Not really. Not clearly. I see things. Things I want. Things I love. But they are distant and I cannot reach them from where I am standing on this side of time.
I’ve been pulling together some of my favorite VSSs from twitter. Creating new works no one has seen yet. And illustrating. I have a lot to do. And would like to get it out by February 29th. Because it is the 29th. A leap year. After a hard one of standing on the edge of the world, staring at the uncertain depths below me. I think, my friends, it is time I take a leap.
So, I guess. It makes sense then. That I titled this project. This eclectic mixture of art and words: Some Little Piece of Me.
I’d like to think that I am some eclectic mix of art and words. Some array of paint spatter, charcoal smears, and drying ink. Beyond this flesh. Beyond these scars. That is what I really am. Pieces. Smaller and smaller. Grains of sand that were once mountainsides.
So allow me to introduce you to my piece. My cover. My work. My art. My heart. My soul. Knitted together by scar tissue. Covered in paint. And soon. Shared with the world.
Some Little Piece of Me.
The best part of this cover is the background is of the very first piece of art I ever sold.
It's special. In all the ways things can be to me.
I hope y'all will like what I pour into its pages. Even the nasty bits.
