Remembering 2016
& the proposal of a marriage between my past and current self, to create a secret third self that only the future can hold.
I’m 20 years old and have just landed back in my childhood bedroom, with a navel full of energy that’s too erratic for me to contain and too heavy for me to unravel alone. But at this point in my life, that is what I am. Alone.1
I spent the past 2 years moving from place to place, so all my childhood friendships have grown distant. My brothers are still too young for me to feel like they have any relevance or understanding of my life experience, I am resentful towards my dad in the way that every child is when they are finally told No after being given so much that they haven’t yet learned to be grateful for, and then there is my mother, who at this time was the last person I wanted to open up to about anything. Though, truth be told, she is ultimately the reason I left the enriching mountainous sea-side land of Sḵwx̱wú7mesh, where I had been living rent-free for the past 2 months in a gorgeous home with a family I loved, and was back in my childhood home in the prairies. I have often asked myself in hindsight, what was I thinking — leaving that incredibly abundant wilderness of a lifestyle as soon as I did? To which the answer is, I was NOT thinking, I was guided by pure unbridled emotion. And difficult emotions like that always lead me back to my mother, because at that time I believed she was the root of all evil. Naïvely —as per the required mental state of my young-adult consciousness— I thought that through arriving at a truce with the woman on the other end of my umbilical chord, I could liberate myself from all of my suffering, and then the rest of my life would finally be a slice of cherry pie.
I wish someone would have told me back then that I should go to therapy. But this was back when Gen Z were still just iPad kids, and no one was broadcasting online about how healthy and normal it is to go to therapy. This was a time when every problem in your life could be solved through advice found in self-help books, angel card readings, and meditation. Of course I could heal all of my issues and all of my mothers issues on my own. So, I forged forward into my old/new life in the only way I knew how: guided by my intuition—hijacked by emotion—and with me, myself, and I, as my only true companions.
I turned to my heart2 art as my space of navigation, as I had ought to, since that was the only avenue I knew how to unravel myself through. Starting with the inside of my amniotic sac—my childhood bedroom—which, coincidentally shared a wall with my mothers room.
My biggest strength back then was having an artistic vision and then without hesitation, plowing full-speed ahead. And my vision was—like my emotions—erratic. I saw a Pollokesque menagerie dancing across my walls. I was also broke, so I just rooted around in our cellar for 18 years worth of half-empty paint cans as my colour pallet, and then over the course of a few hours (or maybe it was a few days?) I dedicated myself to transferring my inner world into my outer world through a series of brushstrokes. Like so much of the art I made at the time, the process of creation was cathartic, but the end result was a bit of a mess. After I finished, I remember feeling a little disappointed in the way all of the various household colours looked together in a cacophony of slashes across my walls, but this is exactly the sort of thing that should be expected when you skip the dating phase with your sketchbook and go straight to marriage with the ~100² foot canvas.
The girl I was back then, was at the precipice of the next decade long chapter of learning to live in this city that she never thought she would ever settle back down in—a city that kept finding reasons to keep hold of her over the next decade (and counting). When I look back at her in photographs, I am sirened into a cavernous ache. I miss her so much. I wish I was still her but also know that being naïve and reckless in your 20’s fairs far better than being naïve and reckless in your 30’s.
So instead, I want to hold her hand and create a pact. I need her to help me bring back my creative spark. I need her to help me tap back into the wellspring of life-force that she so abundantly overflowed with. In exchange, I can help to ensure we don’t blow our life up like she used to have a habit of doing. I have learned stability, so I can hold her steady as she dances to the beat of her own drum. And of course, I will help her remember that it’s not our job to fix our mother, but that also, there is a way that through continuing to focus on bringing together all the fractured pieces of ourself, somehow our mother becomes less and less of the issue and instead she is suddenly just another person that we can love exactly as she is.3
“Sometimes, I’m Always Alone.” — the title to a favourite poem of mine that I wrote 2 years prior to this time, and also the title of my Tumblr. So when I say I was alone, of course I wasn’t totally alone, but sometimes, Alone, is more of a feeling that haunts you no matter who is around.
this was an honest typo. In my mind I wrote “art” but my fingers typed “heart,” which, of course they did. At that point in time, more than ever, facing my heart was synonymous with engaging in my art, and as cliché as it is - that is one of the many reasons why art has saved me over and over again. Though back then, the way I engaged with my art was pure, in a way that I am trying to get back in touch with again today. At 20 years old I was still enveloped by the afterglow of childhood, which cushioned me from reality. I was just pure dream, expression, and vitality—free from the bitterness of those harder lessons that come throughout your 20’s, and the indoctrinations of fine art school (at this time I had only completed 1 year before I dropped out) which plague me now.
The first draft of this essay was written on January 19th, 2026. I chose not to publish it at that time because it felt too personal. I figured the catharsis of writing it was all I needed, and that no one else would gain anything from reading it. But honestly, if that’s what I choose to believe, then I would never publish or share anything. The nature of my art is deeply personal, and maybe it will only resonate with a small handful of people, but that’s enough to warrant pressing “post” and having a mini fit of anxiety. The anxiety passes, and then sometimes 1 or 2 people like/comment, and that feels really sweet. Plus, 20-year old Elysha would have probably hit post after writing draft number one.