Blood Moon and Cherry Blossoms

The following is something I wrote for one of my classes this semester:

    "I painted this art piece shortly before I broke up with my then-fiancé earlier this year; when I saw the details for this activity square, I knew this art piece would fit as-is. Looking back, I've realized that this piece portrayed my deeper, hidden feelings about the relationship, which at the time I was mostly unaware of; according to the textbook for one of my classes, this would have been the dyadic breakdown phase, because I knew something was wrong but couldn't pin down what (Welch, 2022).

    "While I didn't go through a divorce per se, I was a mere month away from the wedding date we'd set when I initiated the break-up, and I'm glad I did it then because going through a divorce would have been much harder. Looking at this piece now, with everything I've learned about divorce since then, I think this piece represents divorce well because ending a relationship is painful and messy. When relationships shatter, it can feel like the world is falling apart around you, and it's hard to know what to do with all the emotions that come up and all the emotional baggage that hangs around afterward. 

    "However, divorce can also lead to beauty, especially in situations where it is an ending of a toxic or abusive relationship. The cherry blossoms around the shattering blood moon at the center can represent that beauty--it's still hard while you're in the middle of it all, but as you start to come out the other side you can see all the ways your life has improved because you've escaped that situation and found a better place for yourself in the world. The pain becomes worth it because it is temporary, while the beauty that results from leaving a toxic situation can last a lifetime."

Citation: Welch, K. J. (2022). Family Life Now (3rd ed). SAGE Publications.


    It's been a unique experience looking back on that relationship over the last six months. I missed a lot of red flags and made a lot of mistakes due to inexperience with relationships, and I learned a lot as a result. On the whole, it was a really good experience for me, and now I have the opportunity to try again and approach a relationship from a healthier standpoint.
    For me, the beauty after the pain has been the ability to learn from my experiences and take a new approach to my life--one centered on being the best person I can be, learning to be content with myself and become stable in who I am and who I want to be. After six months of working through the blood moon as I recovered from that relationship and worked through the emotional baggage it left behind, I am finally seeing the cherry blossoms, and I could not be happier about it.
    To anyone out there who is in a situation similar to what I experienced, or who is working through the aftermath of such a situation, I wish you the best on your journey. What you face may be a thousand times harder than what I have faced, and you may feel close to your breaking point. It's hard to be in that place, and harder still to feel as though you have no support through the experience. To anyone who is struggling, I want you to know that you're stronger than you think, that healing is possible, and that there may yet be a chance to try again one day, should you want it. Take your time, take care of yourself, and take every chance you get to remind yourself of all your strengths and the things you do well.
    I believe in you; I hope you can reach a point where you believe in you, too.

Comments

Post a Comment

Have a thought? Share it! I love hearing what other people have to say.

Popular posts from this blog

What I Write

    In the last eighteen months, I have been on a journey of exploration. Ever since I wrote the first official draft of The Noble Thief  (the novella I'm revising right now, and hope to publish in the next [couple] year[s]) and realized that there wasn't a lot of magic in it, I've been questioning whether I can really call myself a fantasy writer. After all, if your whole magic system is nothing but a volcano that can understand people's intents, that doesn't feel very magical--or very fantasy. In fact, the most fantasy-like part of The Noble Thief  is the plot, which follows the classic fantasy plotline of a runaway/exiled/kidnapped princess who reclaims her throne. Where have we seen that before? Oh, yeah, fairy tales and fairy tale retellings:  The Goose Girl  by Shannon Hale, The Golden Braid  by Melanie Dickerson, The Fairest Beauty  by Melanie Dickerson, etc.     This questioning has raise a lot of insecurities for me--I call myse...
Read more

Three-Act Narrative Structure

Image
     Welcome back!     Today, I'm going to discuss a common narrative structure mentioned in Mr. Ingermanson's blog post about his snowflake plotting method . And yes, I'm linking it again, because the information on his blog is pretty cool stuff.     The reason for this blog post is because I realized, while working on Step 2 of Mr. Ingermanson's snowflake method, that I couldn't visualize where things were going to be in my story. So I drew a rough diagram to get myself started, realized other people might want the diagram too, and made a much nicer version:     Now, let me explain what all the little lines and arrows and explosions mean.     First, we have the Point of Attack--which is, as my theatre professor put it, the place where the story starts. Other people call it the beginning of the story, but Patricia C. Wrede has written blog posts about beginnings on several occasions, and it is her opinion that the place where we pi...
Read more

The Process of Learning

     Hi!     Today, I want to talk about learning.     I know what you might be thinking. Oh, yay! Learning. So exciting.  With a hefty dose of sarcasm.     If that's what's going through your head right now, I don't blame you. I'd probably think the same thing. But I think this is an important topic, and while I don't feel quite as strongly about it as I do about modern body image issues, I've had this one stored up in my files for a while, and am only now adapting it to the blog.     I initially came up with this idea when I was heading into my second semester of Calculus, prepping for the AP Calculus test. Now, I've never liked math, and I hate making mistakes in math because it's long meant I have to redo the problem I missed. But I learned some valuable lessons from my Calculus experience, and they had nothing to do with the actual math of it.     Rather, they had to do with exponential graphs.     Mayb...
Read more