Apparently patience is a lesson I need more than once.
I thought shoulder surgery had taught me enough about waiting. I was wrong. Painting continues to provide refresher courses.
Oil paint has its own timing. Techniques take repetition. Skill does not appear because I really, really want it to. Certification does not arrive faster because I am excited about it. Life is equally uncooperative.
I want to know what comes next. I want decisions settled. I want the new normal to feel normal already. Instead, I am somewhere in the middle.
The middle is uncomfortable because it does not provide the satisfaction of a beginning or an ending. It is simply the part where the work happens.
A painting halfway finished often looks terrible. Backgrounds are incomplete. Shapes are awkward. Nothing seems connected yet. But I have learned not to judge the finished canvas while I am still painting it.
Maybe I should stop doing that with my life too.
I am still in the middle. That is not the same thing as being lost.
