Yesterday, I met Van Gogh

Yesterday, I found myself crying and trying to understand what emotions I was going through, and suddenly, I felt as if I was being held by Vincent Van Gogh. 

His warm embrace said to me, I know what you are feeling, I felt it too, I understand you, there is no shame in feeling lonely. He said his life was defined by loneliness and yet, here he was after so many years, still giving lonely people all over the world warmth through his art and empathy emanating through each brush stroke on his canvas. I never understood why I was attracted to Van Gogh's paintings as a child .. I learnt of his life and it made me sad. His art spoke to me... the twirls in the night sky and the pasty petals of a withering sunflower, fulfilled an urge unknown, deep within me. 

When I was young, it was Van Gogh's art that took precedence over everything else, the man behind the art I respected but never understood truly, that is until I gained a few years of wisdom through heartbreak and empathy... it was then that I truly appreciated and loved the man behind the art. In my loneliness I found Vincent and in his expression I found my freedom, my voice.

The shame of sadness and feeing of loneliness started to blur like watered down paint. It is okay to be lonely, he said, it is okay to love and be not loved back, it is okay to be not understood by the people around you and it is okay to embrace one's intrinsic essence. For he said that is what gives art wings, to reach not just far and wide but also to touch people's heart ages after you return to dust. 

I see Vincent in moments of vulnerability, I see him in moments of child like joy, I see him vividly when I am enraged and I see him in me when I see an eternal light glowing inside, in a world of darkness, he is a guiding light.