Half my life is over...an event-less birthday and my new painting "Behind the Brick Wall"

My birthday has come and gone - it consisted of running errands, grocery shopping, looking at a still-messy house, and getting one gift...totally opposite of the chocolate mint chip ice cream cake I wanted....a bottle of wine (wine and I don't dance well together....I shouldn't have had any of it...but I didn't want the giver to think it wasn't appreciated, since it basically was the only gift I got...LOL!).

So I figure now half my life is over...I'm now 42 and I had a vision years ago I would live to be 84. So I'm halfway there and I've been thinking of what I've done with the first half of my life and how best to live my second half. :)

To start the second half of my life, I completed my painting "Behind the Brick Wall". This painting is currently in my collection, and probably will stay there for quite some time based on my price to sell this one. It's a personal work for me - it really took a lot emotionally for me to create it.

Here's my description I just added to the website for it:

Currently in the collection of the artist, "Behind the Brick Wall" is a somewhat surreal vision of a place we’ve all been from time to time - hiding behind a self-created fortress.

We place ourselves there usually because of extreme emotional distress caused by painful life experiences. In seeking to protect ourselves from more of the same, we build our wall, one brick at a time, often leaving a tiny hole or two, enabling us to peek out and catch glimpses of the world passing by.

At some point, when we feel safe enough, we begin to chip away at the wall we’ve built and eventually we emerge back into life. We’ve grown older and wiser, and we may exhibit extra cautiousness.

But we must come out - we can’t stay behind the wall forever. Because, you see, when we keep out the bad, we also keep out all of the goodness, joy and happiness life offers. And to miss out on the many wonderful experiences life can bring us would truly be a shame.

You can see closer photos of it on the webpage for the painting. Maybe someone else can relate to it as well.

Jai