Betrayal... forgiveness?

I felt a big betrayal recently. Not only a betrayal of the heart, but on my morals and principles. I consider myself an extremely tolerant person, that's what life has made out of me through all my difficult experiences. It has made me a person that sees beyond the natural understanding of things. I have allowed since I was a child the most horrifying of things pass by. Because I understood that some people just didn't know any better. But now as an adult I've learned that people do know better. That just like me, people have choices and they make those choices with their full conscious and awareness. This recent person knew inch by inch what mattered to me, what would wound me, what would break my heart. And with their own conscience they made that choice. And so I lay here night after night with the pieces that are left, trying to find a way to mend them, to heal them. To let those pieces know that they are not to blame for the break, even when they were the ones who broke in the end. The nights are slow and the days not as bright. And I wonder how do I forgive when there is so much anger and sadness in me. How do I forgive when I realize that I allowed this to happen?

Eleanor Roosevelt once said "No one can make you feel inferior without your consent"
So... How do I forgive him for treating me inferior?... How do I forgive myself for giving him consent?

Paintings

As I take down my paintings from the wall I start getting nauseous. It is a lot harder than I expected. I never meant to sell them, you see.  I'm not sure if I ever meant for anyone else to even like them. It scares me to think that I won't sell any... the same exact way that it scares me to think that I will. I don't know if I will feel the same way about other work I do from here on now... But those particular paintings are from specific moments in my life. One of them is a panic attack I had when I experienced a very intense situation with one of the first men I loved. And I think it is funny that it's usually everyones favorite. How could I explain to someone how that felt? Who could understand someone wanting to explain how that felt? Second by second, beat by beat exactly what my body went through in that one night. Another one I made one day was while being angry at myself for not being the good enough artist that I wanted to be. So I threw all the colors of paint I had on a canvas and angrily spread the paint with my hands and fingers. I for sure thought this one would end up in the trash, but I didn't toss it and let it dry instead. My latest one I did almost exactly a year ago. On Valentine's Day all my friends got these amazing flower arrangements and gifts from every admirer they had. I didn't even get a stem. And for a second there I felt bad about myself. Like I had done something wrong in the world and was being punished by being thrown in my face how much better women my friends around me were. And then I said... Fuck Flowers Tania! You don't need a flower to make you feel good about who you are. You like building things, fixing things, and maybe you are not the most conventional girl... but you are not going to let this one stupid day make you feel bad for being who you are, if you want flowers so badly you can go and buy yourself some. You don't need approval from anyone to feel good.

If people would know how many things I have angrily thrown at my paintings, how many times I have cried through but didn't stop painting, how much thought I put to every single detail... If they would know that I only paint because I don't know words to express how I feel about certain things. That sometimes I have no one to talk to about those things but that silent canvas. If that would happen no one would want me to price them.  How do you price moments like that?

Van Gogh (my favorite painter) only sold one painting in his lifetime and painted 860 oil paints. He never lost faith in his art... he lost faith in himself.