Well, I don’t really feel like posting anything right now but I might as well do it now before I change my mind and not post this at all.

This is another piece I made in Saturday’s art therapy group.

Here, I had to scribble with the thought in mind that some part of my body was telling me something. And, well, of course I knew it was going to be my feet because they’re usually in constant pain and whatever happens to my feet takes up a lot of time in my day. The first thing I scribbled was the black; hard, sketchy, angry and concentrated on the bottom part of the page. A couple of strokes went up, as if they were trying to not only grab what was out there but also expel something from where they came from. I saw this as my feet’s complete anger and frustration; or maybe even my anger and frustration towards my feet. The lines, to me, seemed to be full of rage and were trying to act out and throw a tantrum.

A couple of minutes into this, I saw how it was just very dark and very one sided. I couldn’t have just allowed that. So I took some yellow and started striking down towards the black mass on the bottom of the page. I thought, “I’m sending down some positive light into this darkness. Feet, I want you to stop throwing that tantrum and start doing some good.” After that, it just felt right to put some red in there. I love the color red and I signify a lot of power, importance and greatness to that color. And it was just coming out and coming out and just coming out. And I viewed that as progress.

Then, I guess, I saw my actions for what they really were. I saw that instead of flowing the yellow gently, soothingly, into the black, I was throwing it down, hammering the black with the yellow, trying to force it into submission. I was sort of nagging the black with so much “positive” that it would just shut up and just make some progress. I then saw that the red that was coming out really wasn’t a color of progress; it was more of a reaction to what I did to the black, and or rather how I did what did to the black. And now the image was chaotic and had turned into a huge fire.

So lastly, I got some orange, what I thought to be a more peaceful color and stroked across the black. It was some sort of binding to the black. Just making it stop, calling for some peace.

When Sil asked me what kind of message I got from this process, I already sort of knew exactly what my feet wanted to say. I wrote down “I want to move on.”

The whole process was interesting. I already knew that I had a very angry relationship with my feet. I just didn’t know how angry we both really were. As I told the story of what happened in my scribbling, I realized that my feet were just as mad as I was.

My feet were screaming in pain, hurt and rage. They were angry at me because of what I did and I was angry at them because they just weren’t cooperating with me. They were disobeying me. And we were starting to place some blame. Inside, I was going, “This is all your fault. You’re not getting with the program and look at where we are.” And they were going, “Well, you put us in this much shit to begin with, asshole. How can you expect us to get with the program?” This has been going for a very long time. And sometimes we’d both make some progress and we’d get through a lot. But then they would disappoint me and I would get angry and the process would surface again.

We’re both in this aggressive and violent relationship and we both just want it to stop.

But I am the person with the feet. I’m the one making the decisions and I am the one responsible for what happened to me and my feet. I did choose to go for the surgery and I chose the parameters on how I went through it. I made the decisions from the surgery all the way past the physical rehabilitation. I am accountable.

And all this time, I have not been kind to my feet. I have never really thanked it for going through something of that magnitude. We’ve been through so much and I haven’t really appreciated that. I haven’t really acknowledged what my feet have done for me.

“I want to move on.”

Me, too, feet. And I want to start by saying I’m sorry. You have brought me through so much and together we’ve accomplished something amazing. I have been very cruel to you. I tortured you, demanded so much from you and I still haven’t taken good care of you. But you still got me to where I wanted to go. In fact, you’re even starting to run. And for that I thank you. Thank you, feet. Thank you.