Embroidered Face Photos
I realized I’ve been reliving my life through mistakes… not because I keep repeating the same mistakes over and over. I’m reliving my life because I’m forced to relive the memories when I’m picking up the pieces of the broken stuff. The broken stuff can be anything. Items I’ve made, projects I’m working on, gifts I’m making for others. When I’m manic, I have a bad habit of wanting to destroy anything that has to do with me. This includes things I’ve made, things I’ve bought, childhood items, photos… unfortunately, nothing is off limits.
Except that I do have to say, that I don’t destroy things others have given me. Everyone knows I love color and have a house full of it. This past summer when I started going manic, I would start removing decorations. I would take pictures and art down, box away anything fun I made, hide all the family pictures, I even started painting colored walls in my house, white. I don’t know why I would do this. It was almost like I was trying to erase myself from this house. I used to have a closet full of clothes and am now down to a handful. Most of the time I don’t know what I’ve done because I’ve been blacking out while manic for a while now.
I have a large bulletin board in one on my hallways and it’s full of family photos. Recently, during one of my manic episodes, I colored over my face in all the photos with a sharpie. When I realized what I had done, I felt pure devastation. Yes, I could reprint the pictures, but it wasn’t the same. I could throw the photos away, but it felt wrong throwing away photos that had others in them.
I used a pin to push holes into the photo like a grid and decided to add some cross stitch over the areas I ruined.
So while I decided to cover up the damage I had done, I was reminded of this day. It was my cousin Balin’s graduation party and it rained that morning. All my family was there and everyone was laughing and having a good time. The girls in this photo with me are my cousins, Linnea, Maddison and Cami. My Aunt April and my Uncle Dan sat next to me while we ate. I remember an inappropriate joke said at the table and I laughed so hard my stomach hurt.
There was a tower of donuts inside with the most amazing toppings. My daughter ate so many, I thought for sure she’d have a stomach ache that night, but pulled through like a trooper. There was a game taking place in the garage, I think it was table tennis. I took a photo of my son Kadin with my cousin Jerald. Kadin always looked up to Jerald so I took pictures of them together every chance I got. And not but not least was the beautiful chalk art the kids left on the sidewalk for the party.
Plus... This would always be a great way to cover up those ex's in old photos that you still look fabulous in - just saying!
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