I sometimes think I came into this world as an exposed wire under a dark cloud: no barriers or safe orange plastic to protect me from the rain I was born knowing was coming. I was not shiny happy. Overly sensitive and over stimulated, I was easily hurt and had trouble making friends.
I played by myself, and escaped into books because it was safer, but I was always keenly aware that I was different-and that being different hurt. A lot. I bruise easily on the inside.

Now that I am a lot (sigh) older, I know I am different still, but that everyone has their own sets of challenges. I’m not a walking Hallmark card, but have shaken off some of the resentment of my own defects, and learned self-pity won’t get you anywhere. You work with what you have, and you play to your strengths. I see too much sometimes and feel too much, but consequently I am a human barometer – which helps a lot in my job. I fight feeling sad, but I also experience great joy and have an ability to empathize and be sensitive to the struggles of others. I am sarcastic by nature, but can turn it into a decent joke from time to time.

Strengths are weaknesses turned upside down.
I am human and a work in progress.
We all are.

We all make choices and decisions: to be defeated by our problems or become creative problem-solvers. Make your own rainbows. Be brave enough, even when it hurts, to take a step out of your comfort zone and look at something a little differently. Realize you exist as part of a world and your best strategy means connecting with it, not running away. Try to do some good with what you have, and in that process watch what happens. There is a kind of magic to giving of yourself: it makes life a lot more fun and changes you in the process.

Sometimes, my rainbows come through my paintings to make me happy.