Is this a beginning or an end?

Hello, friend.

I promise I’ll be back to my pen and ink drawings soon but I’m sort of loving experimenting with color so please forgive me this week. I’m really bad at color theory and was trying to create a sunrise but I couldn’t get it right so I instead I decided to make it a sunset but I couldn’t quite nail it either and now that I’m looking at it again I’m realizing that I probably should have put some gold on the bottom for the sun but it’s too late now because I think if I add yellow over the blue it will turn green? COLORS ARE HARD. But fun?

Regardless, I’m celebrating a little today because my words are coming back to me. They’ve been gone for a while, stolen by this depression that has lasted longer than normal, but each day I feel myself crawling out from under it a bit.

This week’s doodle is close to my heart because today Hailey starts pharmacy school and I am so proud of them but also it’s a little hard. Their school is less than an hour from our house, which is wonderful, but they’ve moved to a place near their school so they won’t have to commute so long and although they’re closer than they were for their undergraduate work I know that I won’t see them as much as before. It’s a demanding four years and they’ll probably spend most of their weekends studying and catching up with their sweetheart who still has another year of college in San Marcos. And when they graduate it’s possible they’ll never come back home to live. It’s bittersweet…this moment where I can almost see the future ahead…and it’s both heartwarming and a little bit heartbreaking. It’s an end, but also a beginning. A sunset and a sunrise.

“I don’t know if this is a beginning or an end, but I know that it is beautiful no matter what.”

And speaking of endings…next month this strange little substack that was supposed to last for just one year will hit its two year anniversary. I should end it. I dragged you along with me for twice the amount of time that I asked you for. But as I reach the end I realize that I think I’m not quite done yet. I still have a little more to say here. And so I think I’ll do one last year. I hope that you’ll join me.

(And if you’re a paid subscriber who pays the year in advance to get the discount {THANK YOU! YOU KEEP ME IN ART SUPPLIES!} be aware that substack may automatically sign you up again on the one year anniversary, so if you need to become a free subscriber I totally get it and you can always change that in your account now if you need to.)

I super crazy love you.

(Not quite) The End.

~me