From Loss to Bloom – A Garden of Hopes Story

This gestural abstract captures the tension and rhythm of my journey through silence and loss. Each stroke reflects the raw, unfiltered emotions of those years — uncertainty, heaviness, and the quiet unraveling of self. The layers are both struggle and formation, marking the invisible work that would eventually lead me back to creation, hope, and rebirth.

Every time I hear the words “parting ways,” something inside me trembles.

It’s a familiar pull, quiet but sharp. It's like a thread tightening deep in my chest.

Because endings, in any form, are never simple.

Some slip in quietly, the way two people drift apart without a single storm… just distance growing like vines. Some arrive suddenly, the kind of changes that knock the wind out of you when you least expect it. And some endings feel like standing at the edge of your own life, watching something precious fade while you’re unable to stop it.

I used to fear endings with my whole being.

I believed they meant failure.

Loss.

A version of myself slipping away for good.

But somewhere in the still, slow mornings in my garden I felt something softened.

Watching petals fall taught me a truth I had resisted for years: Nature ends, gently, so life can begin again.

Flowers bloom, then release. Leaves wither so new buds can form. Even the soil rests after giving everything it has.

Not all endings are tragedies.

Some are quiet blessings, small clearings made so something more aligned can take root.

That truth would become the heartbeat of my Garden of Hopes series.

___________

The Breaking

For seven years, I stopped painting.

And with every month…every season that turned without me…every year that passed in silence…

…I felt myself slipping further and further from the artist I once knew.

It wasn’t just drifting.

It was disappearing in slow motion.

Some days felt dimmer than others. Some mornings felt heavy before I even opened my eyes.

I moved through moments that felt muted, as if I was watching life through glass.

My brushes sat untouched.

My studio gathered dust.

And there were times I stood in front of a blank canvas and felt an emptiness I didn’t understand.

It's not a dramatic collapse, but a quiet thinning of the parts of me that used to feel bright and alive.

It was a silence I didn’t choose

A silence that spread quietly,

until even my own reflection felt unfamiliar.

It wasn’t one catastrophic moment that broke me. It was a thousand small days that slowly unraveled the edges of who I was.

And the scariest part wasn’t the darkness. It was the numbness.

And that questions: What if I can never return? What if the artist in me is gone for good?

They echoed louder than anything else.

But here's the part I only understand now:

Those years weren’t empty. They were underground years.

Root years.

The kind of work roots do — unseen, uncelebrated, but essential.

Years where something inside me was quietly reshaping itself while I struggled to stay afloat.

My breaking wasn’t the end. It was the opening.

A tear in the old self that allowed the new self to breathe.

I wasn’t failing. I was forming.

___________

The Return

When I finally lifted my brush again with unsteady hands and an unsure heart, it wasn’t a grand, triumphant moment.

It was fragile. Almost shy.

Like stepping into sunlight after too long in the shade.

But in that moment, I felt something I hadn’t felt in years:

A spark trying to find its way back. A small, stubborn breath of life.

Every stroke carried weight, layers of what I had survived: the heaviness, the stillness, the quiet ache of feeling lost, the tiny shifts that slowly stitched me back together.

Endings hadn’t taken everything from me. They had given me clarity. They had stripped away what didn’t belong so I could return to what mattered.

And from that return came Garden of Hopes, a series born from the fragile and trembling beginning of believing in myself again.

Every piece holds a whisper:

After every winter, spring finds its way.

Even barren soil is not dead. It is preparing.

This close-up captures the intricate layering of petals in The Anatomy of Joy. The vibrant colors were chosen to celebrate resilience and the subtle, radiant energy that emerges after periods of darkness. Each hue reflects a facet of rebirth — tenderness, hope, and the quiet brilliance of life returning.

And Then — Joy

As I painted my way through hope, something else began to grow.

Something softer. Something brighter.

Something I didn’t expect to feel again:

Joy.

Gentle at first, almost shy like a small light learning how to shine again without fear of going out.

If Garden of Hopes was my rebirth, then The Anatomy of Joy is the next chapter, a reminder that healing doesn’t end when the darkness lifts.

It continues in tenderness, in softness, in the quiet permission to feel alive again.

It is my latest work from the Garden of Hopes series, a continuation of the light that began there.

___________

The Truth I Carry Now

So now, when something ends whether it’s a friendship, a chapter, or a version of myself, I allow myself to feel the ache.

I also listen for the quiet voice that says:

“This is not the end. This is the soil. Something is forming beneath the surface.”

Because I have lived through darkness that felt endless.

I have lived through seasons where I thought I would never return. And yet… I did.

I began again.

And that, more than anything, is the story I want others to hold:

It is possible.

Even when it doesn’t feel like it.

Even when the world goes dim.

Light finds a way back in.

You find a way back to yourself.