What Cancer Gave Me

Initially I wouldn’t have anything to do with it. I was feeling unwell, tired and just didn’t have the energy to try my hand at a craft while undergoing chemo! On top of that, I knew my mum had been good at painting, there was just no way I wanted to try this ‘hobby’ of hers just as much as I never wanted to bake or sow like her either. Also painting just never apealed to me, or so I thought!

I kept declining but mum persisted so eventually I gave in one day when she laid out the canvas and the oil paints neatly on the table outside.  She had gone through so much effort to bring her supplies and literally begged me to do it this one time and she would never ask again.  So I did…….

Long story short, I have not been able to put the paintbrush down ever since that day.   I have taken to oil painting like a bird to flying and enjoyed the experience so much that most other hobbies have since taken a back seat. I often refer to it as my happy place. A place I escape to where my mind is absolutely quiet and I live bold and fearless. I have a lot to learn as a new artist but to me it is more about being on a journey of creativity and wellbeing. I can sit in front of a canvas for hours and find that my anxiousness disappears into the abyss whenever I pick up a paintbrush and to me that is priceless.

I am tremendously grateful for my mum who persisted that day.  Because I would not have found my creative side and the amount of joy that painting brings me if she didn’t push so hard.  I have since painted an array of different paintings and have even be commissioned a couple of times.  I would like to encourage you to try whatever it is you thought you couldn’t do.  Don’t doubt yourself so much and remember, with everything in life, 90% of it is just showing up.  Enjoy the good moments this horrible disease sometimes provide us with.  Cancer gave me a new found love for living.