I'm making art again.

I can hardly believe it, I'm drawing again. I don't think I've drawn in about five years. And I didn't think it was a habit you could just pick up again.

But God, I did. I picked up a pencil, opened a sketchbook and I drew. And I'm still good. Rusty, and in need of training and practice, but still good.

But this story needs some background info.

Once upon a time, before any of you knew me (believe it or not, even you, Lexi!) I drew A LOT. All the time. I had comics I liked to draw and they were just cutesy little 6th grade stuff that I did, but I drew a ton of 'em. I filled up a bunch of notebooks and sketchbooks, not counting the drawings I still have laying in this drawer of my dresser. Fuck, I loved drawing and I forget how much I loved it.

I drew everything. Cartoons, people, animals, whatever I saw in my head.

For those of you who didn't know, my "tween" years were filled with agony. I didn't fit in (which I later realized was the fault of the places where I was supposed to fit being too small.) I cried a lot. I spent a lot of time wondering why people didn't like me and what was wrong with me. I hated my parents because I felt like they hated me because I was fucken' weird. I had no friends. I hated my body more than anything. My grades were fine, but I still felt like they weren't good enough. I felt like nothing I did was good enough.

I was in a lot of pain. This lasted from, roughtly, 6th to 8th grade, or the entirety of my time in middle school. (If you didn't know, I just graduated high school last year. Will be college sophomore in September.) And still, whenever I feel pain like that, I'm reminded of those years.

As some weird sort of excursion a couple of nights ago, I looked through my old diaries and while I was looking through them, I found my sketchbooks (which by far outnumbered my diaries, even though I've always considered myself a writer.)

And I was fucking flabbergasted.

All I remember of my middle school years is pain. And lots of it. And sadness and fucked-up-ness. But I looked through all my drawings... and I saw none of that. I saw stories. Good stories. I saw happiness, laughter, and good drawings. I didn't remember having been good. But I was good. I was really good.

Now I know, what I saw was escapism. I escaped all my pain by drawing. Nothing hurt anymore. And now I feel like a thawing winter turning into spring, because I'm drawing again.

Things will start hurt. But now, I have a way to deal with it. This was who I was meant to be, and it's who I like being.