Over the past week, I started clearing out the last few things left at my mom’s place. I had way less shit than I thought. But to my surprise, I found about fifteen pieces of art I made between the ages of nine and seventeen.

Finding them brought up a mix of feelings I didn’t expect--sadness, nostalgia, and hope, all at the same time. It felt like one of those moments where your internal chemistry gets rearranged, like being thrown back into the depth of old memories without warning.
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Coming Across the Painting

This one piece stood out in particular. I believe I made it when I was around seventeen. I never signed it or dated it, but I have vague memories of putting it together.

I remember using cables from a computer, a smashed Coke can, wax, and the lighter I used to melt the wax, then gluing the lighter directly onto the painting. I even glued one of the paintbrushes I used onto the canvas itself. At the time, I am guessing it felt instinctual, like the materials themselves mattered as much as the image.

I’m not an art therapist, so I’m not trained to interpret art the way they do. But even without that lens, it feels obvious to me that teenage me had a lot of feelings.‍

What Painting Meant Back Then

My teenage years were far from great. I often felt lonely, angsty, and angry--for good reason. I felt trapped, and in many ways, I was. Age and environment don’t leave you with a ton of agency.

Painting became a way to drown out the noise and stay in the moment. It was one of the few places where I could exist without having to explain myself.

I wish I remembered what was happening in my life at the exact moment I made this piece, but I don’t. What I do remember are the feelings. The music I listened to. How my room looked. The mental state I lived in back then. Those memories feel strangely intact, even if the details are fuzzy.
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Looking at It Now

Seeing the painting now, I feel genuinely happy that I kept it. So many things disappear as we get older--objects, versions of ourselves, entire emotional landscapes. Sometimes that can be relieving and other times it can feel sad and for lack of a better way to describe it, full of grief.

This painting feels like a tether to a small but significant part of my life. A reminder that I was once deeply feeling, deeply creative, and doing my best with what I had.

I feel lucky to still have that connection.