image: the unfinished Adoration of the Magi by Leonardo da VinciThis my dear reader, is the story of a painter.
As of this very moment, it has been exactly twenty years since she touched a brush. Not from the lack of time. After all twenty years is too long to allow for time as an excuse. Not from a lack of inspiration either, for every change in season brings about its own stirrings in one's soul. Nay, she stopped painting from a complete lack of will, using the only excuse she deemed permissible - that she was not good enough and lacked at imagination, the one innate gift that could not be learned through laborious study.
And at this very moment, she wonders if she was happier then in pursuit, or now in appreciation. And contrary to the countless examples of resentment and of repressed lives, she concludes that she is satisfied. That she had grown into being happy, just as she had grown into being in love. After all, one never realizes when one stops pretending.
