Hi anita,

I read your post earlier today and decided to think about it during a hike today. I became very emotional imagining my child self and realizing that that child self is still in me (and is in fact a very large part of me). I can remember the fear and extreme cautiousness and sadness from childhood, but reconsidering those emotions as one that I had as a child, undeserving of those feelings, as opposed to ones that I earned or was deserving of makes me feel very sad now still. I wish I could go back but of course I cannot. And what would I even do? I was so afraid of criticism but also felt that I had to risk criticism to get much-needed validation and praise (the chance that what I did, might, this time, be perfect).

I found your imagery of the drawing interesting because art is very important and personal for me — it is a huge part of my private life that I only share with people very close to me. When my ex-boyfriend and I were towards the end of our relationship, I painted him a bird in a tree with sunlight pouring through the branches (the first painting I have ever given anyone). Just like in your imagery, my heart was beating very fast and I looked at his face for a reaction, waiting, and he smiled and kissed me and said thank you but I was disappointed. for weeks afterward I would see it hung up and silently critique and undermine it. This is what your imagery made me think of, as well as how my child self has influenced so much of who I am. I feel now like I’m realizing that I felt very, very safe in my relationship, until fights started to happen, and I felt exactly like a child again, unable to process the distress and fear in any other way than paintings, presents, and being the best I could be. It’s very painful for me to imagine this need for perfection as something that was ‘born’; and my unfortunate instinct is that there is something I should’ve done differently to prevent this perfectionist flaw in me that’s caused me so much pain and misunderstanding in different parts of my life ever since. I want to be able to give relief to my inner child and take the weight of her shoulders…