I Painted Something Badly and Loved It Anyway

Dear Delyara, It was awful. The colors were wrong. The proportions were off. I ruined one brush by leaving it in the rinse cup too long. There is absolutely no chance it will ever hang on any wall in any house where dignity matters. And I loved the hour I spent making it. Because nobody needed it. No one was waiting on it. It wasn’t for school, work, family, dinner, or utility. It wasn’t even “productive” in the way women are taught to justify pleasure. It was just mine. I think that’s why it made me emotional. Not because I’m secretly an artist. Because I am secretly starving for pointless beauty. That little ugly painting sat on the table drying while I made lunches. I looked at it twice and felt more like a person than I had all day.