You

are the hero of your own BRAVE life.

You 

may think you have failed. But no.

Your supposed failures are, in truth, the little horrors you subject yourself to in order to see more clearly, the heroic failures of others and of yourself, so that you may be able to accept them graciously for what they are. Just sharpened crayons filling in the work of art that is a humanity.

Art is not always soft and forgiving. Not always a stinging slap in the face or a blinding beauty sent to trap your gaze in astonished wonder. It is what makes life worth the living and how you view it is your own BRAVE choice.

I choose to view it and view it and love it and love on it as much as is humanly possible. To love even the harshest, most disgusting ‘works’ without disgust but full-on curiosity and a hunger for knowledge of the ones I cannot yet understand, but will someday, time willing.

BECCA LAVIN is a massage therapist. She is a somewhat mature human consumed with childish glee when surrounded by the arts—visual, tactile, messy, human arts. She is a lover of the written word, the spoken word, the sung word, and small visual delights brought into focus or, purposefully, out.