Hey there, dear readers!

Let's talk about change. You all might know those phrases you find in literature and documentaries, those lines like "That event really changed my life" or "That week made me another person".
I've always thought those lines to be empty and nothing more then what I called them before: phrases.
But I've changed my mind ... and I've changed.

The last few weeks have been some sort of personal hell. I've felt and actually been betrayed by a person that I thought to be very close to me, I've nearly lost something that's very, very precious to me, I've certainly lost a lot of trust, faith and innocence as far as all things interpersonal are concerned. I've seen this whole construct I considered to be "my life" crumble and fall apart.
I've lost a lot, in general, and at some points I felt so emotionally exhausted that I wasn't sure if I could really take it any more. Well, as can be seen, I could, although only with some help from friends.

I've then taken a long, long look at those shards that were once my life and before putting each part to the place it came from, I asked myself if I really wanted it back. Like a close friend of mine put it: It's easy to reassemble your life if it's broken to pieces anyway." And so I did.
Yesterday, a friend of mine asked me, wether I'm still really me. Each time she'd see me, she told me, I'd seem to have changed radically lately. Which is, actually, not completely wrong.
Last time I met her, I had shaven of my beard which I had been growing for half a decade now and the day before yesterday when we met, she was among the first witnesses to account that I have done the same with my shoulder-length hair by now.

I've thought long and hard about each of those steps before and will do so too about some more to come, but each of them just feels right at the moment. I'm sure that some of those changes are grounded in the decision to leave at least something behind, to make a cut between now and that past in which I was so badly hurt.
But was it true what I told her, am I still really me?
The main reason that gives me a lot of certainty that I'm not doing it just for the sake of making the cut is that other things, that accompany for a longer time by now, also including this art gallery, are not endangered. No, it's the opposite: I finally dare to say "Yeah, I'm doing artwork, take a look at my portfolio, will ya?" - something I was always very shy about.

There's a lot of things that bothered me in the last months that I finally dare to face and overcome. And in many cases, the main question has to be: Why didn't I do that before?
Here's a piece of advice you might find handy: If something in your life askes to be changed, dare and change it. Do not wait for a catastrophy to come along and help you change it; in my case, it sort of does, but the ease with which most things can be adjusted is just augmenting the question why I lived with those things before.

Coming out of this emotional and practical cleansing actually helped me to find back to me and, in the meantime, show me some things clearly that I somehow wanted for a long time, but that I so far dismissed for one reason or the other.
For all the things I've lost, I've gained some things too. A perspective, a chance I never dreamed to get, some new insights about myself, more self-esteem, more self-confidence, a very clear understanding of what I want and something I might call personal growth.

I wonder if, let's say in a year, this point will still be showing. If you can, 366 days in the future, point at April 2007 and note a detectable change in the nature of my artwork. I can pinpoint some elements right here and now, but I won't. And if it's for no other reason then making it impossible for me, myself, to re-read this post in a year and remind myself.
Art should be self-explanatory; if it's not, it's empty. If the change is relevant, it'll still be there in a year. If it's not, it'll be a mood point anyway.
I know where I want to be in a year. I've actually a text at hand that kind of underlines those goals and that'll be printed in a few days, sealed with wax and stored somewhere where I'll know it to be in good hands.
And in a year, we'll see how well things turned out.

"Change is good", Master Splinter says in the pilot episode of the newest Turtles cartoon.
"May you live in interesting times" is a chinese curse.
If you'd asked me, eight weeks ago, wether I want change, I'd have denied it.
If you'd asked me a month ago, I'd have gone with the Chinese.
If you ask me now ... I feel like I've been given a chance. A big chance.

I'll do my best to grab it.

And produce artwork along the way.
Be prepared for some things you haven't ever seen from me before!


Your's truly,
a changed Thomas