I’m finally starting to see a merging between my old journal pages, paper, and paint. It has been really challenging for me to get a more “literary” feel in my paintings without being too “literal” When I started this week with the old journal pages I got caught up in the words, the memory. When I started attaching the pieces to my paper and adding paint it didn’t make sense. There was no composition and the paint and mark making didn’t jive with the journal pages. I tore a bunch of pages out of my journal and laid them on my studio floor. I added coffee stains then let paint drip on them, I messed them up, I added something from the now. They started to speak to me in a new way, a fresh way. Today I don’t even feel like reading the old entries anymore. Yesterday in our parents group at early start, I told the group what I had been working on and some of the difficulties. The group therapist said “maybe you’re not ready to let go of them yet” I said “maybe”  but inside at that moment I felt and knew I was ready, 100% to let go of that story, to those words and the way they were written, the way they make me feel.To only reference it lightly, to turn it into a new story, a new unconfined energy,  something in the present. My history will always be with me, inside me, and come out on the page. But I can practice letting go of the constricting stuff.