Tango With Art

          I wake up on another morning with a family who loves me and along the path of a beautiful scenery for my paintings. I also wake up with my horrible body and a butt load of crippling depression.

          I say to the mirror, “Magic Mirror on the wall, who’s the ugliest of them all?” 

          Of course, I respond with, “You, with all your moon-like craters on your forehead for picking your goddamn pimples. Also, loose some weight. No wonder you don’t want to go to Florida for vacation.” 

          I try to ignore my flaws and just looking at myself overall. Jet black hair, scruffy beard, hazel eyes, and pretty fat. I walk away from the mirror quietly trying not to disturb my sleeping family so early in the morning. I leave my cabin house, avoiding the dirty snow with my new boots from my daughters. I get into my cold hearted car and drive to my painting spot.

          During the ride, my wife calls me. 7:00 as usual reminding me to have a good day and to pick up the kids as usual. She passes me the kids as they tell me where to pick them up as they always alternate spots at the babysitter. I hang up and continue on my journey. After another hour I reach to my destination. 

          I can see the birds, my angels in the sky. The clouds show me what I wish I could be. Bright in emotion with no darkness haunting me inside. The blue skies represent being cool, which isn’t me since I’m insecure about by appearance. I try to ignore all my pain and try to paint the beauty. Inside, I’m crying inside  and I’m about to break. However, it’s been like that for years so I’m used to it. People think for being a famous artist that your happy because you have so much money. But there is so much more than that. For example. how I actually feel in my personal life. After a day of painting, I finished with my project and went to pick up my kids from the babysitter. For a moment, I think about my life. Why I still live on this planet of hell and misery. 

          Soon after, I pick up my little angels that keep me alive, Sasha and Charlotte. I still wonder why I’m so obsessive about my paintings rather than my daughters, even in what is supposed to be summer. They get into my car and tell me all about their day. How they played a new game with the babysitter. 

          Charlotte asks me, “So, how was your day dad. Did you paint anything new?”

          I respond with, “Yeah, my day was really good. I went to this place where you can see the mountains, the clouds, and the birds fly by. There, I finished my painting.”

          What I really wanted to say was, “My day was horrible, thanks for asking. I almost broke down twice, thought about why I still live, and finished my painting on what I wished I could be.”

          The last minutes of the ride, I was called by my wife. She tells me that She’ll be coming late for a meeting that she has to go to. That wasn’t good for me since I needed some alone time just to think for a bit more. However, I need to be less selfish and spend some time with my kids. 

I said okay and went off to the house. I prepared some gourmet dinner, frozen microwaveable burritos and gave it to the kids since the depression takes me away from doing productive things. While they eat their burritos, I take a quick shower hoping to god that I wash away all the darkness over my head. But let’s be realistic, there probably is no god and church on Sunday’s is a joke. Also, there is no hope for me. After I finish complaining about life, I change into my house clothes and attend to my daughters. I put on a movie for them and try to spend time with them for once in my life. To my surprise, I feel happy again watching a Disney movie with people that I love.

          Half way through the movie, my wife comes in, almost ruining the happy moment with my daughters. I greet my wife and my daughters leave me like my happiness and go to their mother. I make my way to the bedroom, going to sleep wondering how my sale tomorrow is going to go. Also, the usual why I’m still here.

          I wake up the next day to my car alarm sounding off. I get out of bed running to what I think is someone stealing my car. I get out of the house into the “summer warmth” of Alaska and find my car driving away with an asshole who's making my life worse. I stat thinking what was in the car before calling the police. The next thing I know, I’m in my bed crying, no cops on their way. My most priced possession that I worked on for only a week is gone. The only thing that I could sell. The only thing that gave me hope of what I could be. An 8x10 canvas that has probably kept me alive is gone.

          I start becoming more serious if this is the end. I don’t want more pain in my life. No more violence like the tango in my dying brain. I bring a coat, two pieces of paper, and a marker. With one paper. I write where to find me. Where I was witnessing what could have been my future. Also, that the car was stolen and to call the police for it, and probably myself.

          I start walking in the cold, sun shining bright to where I might end it all. I start to get flashbacks of my life. When I was a happy child, to being a depressed middle-aged man who has everything and nothing. Soon, I’ll get diabetes, become even more fat, get divorced by my wife for being selfish and fat, then die alone in a cold lonely house in Alaska because you have to be an overly artsy artist so people on Tumblr can take you work and make quotes on them being emo and edgy.

          I get to where my resting place might be. 

          I write on the second piece of paper, “Here lies the resting place of the emo artist who hates himself. I’m probably going to be at the bottom of the cliff. Therefore, look for me there. Signed Jake “The Voiceless” Miller.”

          I take off my jacket so just incase I don’t die instantly, I’ll die of hypothermia. Just as I’m about to take my leap of faith, a bald eagle flies by me in circles. I wonder why it’s interrupting me at this time as it sits on my shoulder. It looks at me like it is trying to say something to me. I look at it closer and then it flies away. I don’t know if it was trying to tell me something, so I sit down and just think. What felt like a minute turned into an hour. In the distance, I can hear sirens from cop cars. I just stay in my place, thinking, not caring what will happen. 

          Once the cops came, they surrounded me seeing if I was okay along with my wife and kids looking on in the background. I could understand everything they were saying, trying to get as much information out of me. However, the words couldn’t come out of my mouth. The cops suddenly put me in a cop car, me not knowing where I’m going with no hesitation. However I still wonder, what did that bald eagle want to tell me.