????? ??? ??????? - ??????? ?????? ? ?????? ?

━━━

I feel my mind layer in my own thoughts. 

I explore them.

Paint gently lines down the rough, white canvas before me.

The careful shaping of a fragile, green stem.

The enveloping blossom of the petals to wrap around it's top, bursting in hues of yellows and oranges - the painting of Marigolds blooming before my very eyes.

I hold a paintbrush in my steady, calm hand.

A hold to be both firm and unhesitating, standing with both bare feet planted against the floor of the sunroom. 

My own, little slice of heaven. 

Moments for my own, comforting isolation, where I can spend a few ours detached from the world around me. 

Just to sink myself into my own creativity and tranquillity. 

Each line is steady, and natural.

August is to care for our boy whilst I have these moments for myself, letting me drown in my own mind without being shadowed or constantly watched.

The sun beams through the glass of the sunroom, glazing over the fresh, bright greenery of my plants that hold themselves so lively and colourful. 

Their earthy scent coats my senses, and I could never find myself wishing for a life different than this.

I love every moment of this.

The mornings.

The nights.

The evening dinners.

Each hour of feeding for our son.

These speckled, little joyous moments to heighten my happiness and appreciation for the things around me. 

And sometimes, during moments like this, I observe my own body. 

The marks that have been laid across my skin during the lonesome hours of melancholy I endured.

Scars that will never fade, and will follow me to death.

But I cannot bring myself to despise such markings.

I may believe such markings are a tribute, a physical memory of what one can grow from, and with the passing of time, how much someone can truly develop and bloom.

They are a reflection of history - feelings and emotions my mind had went to war with, and for me to be standing right here, a lack of tremble in my hands, with a clean painting before me; I can appreciate my own history. 

Because I have come to comprehend one thing.

I will never be anybody else but me within this lifetime.

And with time to be inevitable, the acceptance that I am to be within this skin until I die is also something I must accept. 

I will always be in this body, and I must care for it until I die. 

This body.

That was once a baby, that was once a toddler, that was once a child, that was once a teenager, and what was, and is, a grown woman.

This body.

That has hurt, bled, torn, bruised, and ached.

This body. 

That has felt happiness and warmth, the buzzing flutter of love and laughter.

This body.

That has produced and provided the nutrients and inhabitance, of new life. 

And I do not wish to disrespect it in any form.

 And through it all, I have been able to heal. 

Through what I have put my body through, it had still healed.

Because it knew I am to love. 

To love my son, and my husband.

My own baby, and the love of my life.

The two most important people to me.

And with time to pass, there is still so much to see.

So many birthdays, so many christmas's. 

So many moments of laughter and tears and pain and joy and emotion.

So many experiences.

And to do it all, in the peace, and the comfort, of the love we share as a family. 

There is peace. 

True, unconditional peace.

And before I knew it, before I could mentally catch up, time was slipping through my fingers.

━━━

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━