Have you ever felt completely drained, as though every ounce of energy inside you was trapped, with no way out? It’s a feeling I know all too well—a mix of exhaustion and oppression that seems to pull every last bit of strength from you.
There are days when I wake up with a weight on my chest, an invisible pressure that clings to every thought, every movement. The energy is there, I’m sure of it, but it’s hidden, buried under a thick layer of silence. It’s like a blocked spring, pushing and straining but unable to find an outlet. In those moments, everything feels still, like holding your breath for far too long. Sometimes, that sense of oppression lasts for days, even weeks. The last time, after my father passed away, it lasted for months. It felt as though my inner world was shrouded in a heavy, impenetrable darkness.
The blank canvas before me becomes a mirror of that stillness. It’s mute, formless, but in its emptiness, it challenges me. Every time I look at it, I ask myself: what will happen if I take the first step? What if, instead of fearing it, I embrace the void? And so, slowly, the process begins. It’s not an explosion but a gentle whisper, a call inviting me to pick up the palette knife and choose a color.
I paint women. Women who are not just figures but parts of me that long to surface. They are fragments of my strength, my vulnerability, my desire to express what I cannot put into words. And then there are the cities: fragmented landscapes, metropolitan scenes that represent the ordered chaos of my thoughts. The streets I paint often seem directionless, but it’s there that I find meaning. Every line, every detail is a reclamation of space, a declaration of energy returning to flow.
This process is not just a creative act. It’s a ritual of healing. Every stroke of the palette knife, every choice of color becomes a dialogue with that oppressive silence that had me trapped. The energy, which once seemed to implode inside me, takes shape before my eyes. It becomes tangible: a vibrant color, a texture that speaks, a face gazing back at me from the canvas with a strength I had forgotten.
At the end of the day, I feel tired. But it’s a different kind of tiredness, one that doesn’t come from emptiness but from fullness.
It’s the awareness of having transformed that formless weight into something that lives and breathes. And tomorrow, I will begin again, because every painting is not just a work of art but a testimony to my journey, a trace of that rediscovered strength.
If you, too, feel stuck, trapped in that void, try creating. It doesn’t matter what or how: write, draw, sing, build something. The energy you think is lost is still there, hidden inside you, waiting for your first step to set it free.
