When Life Melts Your Face

A few years ago when I was feeling particularly baller, I bought a painting. It’s of a colorful, swirly lollipop set against a jet black background because I am very practical and who doesn’t need a seven grand lollipop? It was from a Robert Lange Studios show called SOUVENIR and came with an identical framing of the real-life object from which it was painted. The two hang side by side in my bedroom, one real, one paint. I have grand visions of one day separating them and sending Coco to college with the real one while I hold onto the painting like some extravagant, privileged friendship bracelet. I’ll lovingly gaze at my painting and shed empty nest tears knowing my daughter is doing the same on her end while in fact her drunk roommate has probably broken the glass and eaten the stale lolli by now.  

I attach deep, sentimental meaning to any painting I bring home to stay with me ‘TIL DEATH DO US PART. This one says to me: stay joyful amidst the darkness. Even when there is bad stuff going on all around us, we can choose to hold onto our sweet and simple goodness. What a rosy picture.

Today, I walked into my bedroom and stopped in my tracks. No way. I looked closer. It is so blazing hot in Charleston that MY ART MELTED! I’m not a neanderthal, I have central air set at a comfortable 73 degrees in the summer months but sure as shit, the heat of the sun peaking through my blinds was melting the expertly framed original lollipop, globs of the swirly candy dripping down like candle wax. Only now do I understand my fair-skinned friend’s casual complaints that her mortal enemy rises and sets everyday—devil ball of fire!

I didn’t react like a woman whose perfectly twinning lollipop art just got jacked (how clever I felt back then getting a swank twofer! Insert flashback of smug hoity-toity laugh here). There was something kind of absurdly funny about it, like an overt message being sent. YO, LIFE LESSON HERE, LOOK UP!

And then, because I speak fluent metaphor, I got it. Yes, we can hold onto our sense of wonder and joy, but we don’t REMAIN UNCHANGED through the dark shit in life. It’s pure denial to think we can go through life’s challenges and come out the same on the other side. I’ve tried. Remember when you were a bouncy, fun party girl and did fully-clothed cannonballs into fancy hotel bar pools and now you get excited to go to the Floor & Decor store and go to bed at 8:30pm? Uh, yeah. Because my biggest problem used to be if the open bar only served Chardonnay and then I had a baby and postpartum depression and suffered traumatic heartbreak and raised a child for four years by myself so screw former party girl me and see if you can stay up past sunset.  

Sometimes life melts your face off. Period. 

Maybe your 4-year-old is driving you slowly insane by not listening while constantly suctioning herself to your skull when she’s not screaming for ice cream or whining incessantly to be picked up because of the MOTHERFUCKING HOT LAVA. Maybe you’re in a loveless marriage and hanging in there for the kids and ease of having just one Netflix account. Maybe you’re scared or sick or have suffered a great loss. Maybe you are touched by literally anything in the terrifying loop that is the world news. 

I used to Pollyanna out with all this empowerment self-talk: it’s all good, it could be worse, be grateful, ignore the dark stuff and just be happy in your own little candyland. But that shit is toxic because HELLO!!! PIECES OF US HAVE MELTED! It’s not about willing ourselves to force a smile through life like we still hold the same innocence and optimism as we did Before. We are transformed by the hard in life and we need to acknowledge and accept that. We may get a little dull and drippy for a while and that’s okay. We may start showing some cracks on the surface and that’s okay. Whole pieces of us may break off leaving sharp, jagged edges where there was once smooth, perfect, hot pink candy and that shit is okay.

Interestingly enough, my meditation this morning was all about this (shout out to the Daily Jay on Calm even though I’m normally a Daily Trip with Jeff kind of girl). It told the story of a Vietnam vet who was shot down during the war and held at a POW camp for seven years. Talk about a face melt. He later said that the prisoners who were the first to lose their will were, surprisingly, the optimists. The ones who kept pumping themselves up with the delusional “any day now I’ll go home, darkness ain’t got shit on me” self-talk were the ones who suffered increasing disappointment each day they weren’t rescued. In the end, white-knuckling that picture perfect image as a way to combat the darkness allowed the darkness to take over. In contrast, the soldiers who practiced radical acceptance were able to cope better with their current realities while maintaining hope for the distant future.

Let’s be real about the sitch. DAMN, MY FACE MELTED. I WAS PERFECT AND NOW I HAVE HOLES. THIS SUCKS. YEAH, IT DOES SUCK. THAT IS TRUE. OKAY. WELL, SHIT. I GUESS I’M A SLIGHTLY DIFFERENT LOLLIPOP NOW. CAN I GET A HUG?    

Darkness is not something outside of us that we can escape; we coexist. It’s not about holding strong and immovable against it but experiencing it and allowing it to hurt and grow us into something new. It’s a bitch but it’s a great teacher like that pilates instructor I had that one time who made me cry on a Reformer. The darkness is what makes us different and interesting and complex. It’s what makes the good times in life that much sweeter. 

By the way, the painting is by Spanish artist Jesús Navarro. So, yeah, Jesus is apparently sending me DMs now. #NBD.