The Ache of Almost
 
This piece didn’t start with a concept.
It wasn’t planned. It wasn’t even fully understood, not until after it was finished.
 
I created it with my hands, layering texture, letting instinct guide me.
And it wasn’t until I sat with it, until I really looked at it, that I realised what it was showing me.
 
The Ache of Almost is about the quiet tension I live in, that space between becoming and arriving.
It’s about feeling your purpose burning inside you, rising from your centre like light ready to burst, 
but not quite reaching where it’s meant to go.
 
As I studied the canvas, I saw myself:
that light in the centre, that was me.
Noticing how it stretched toward a source beyond it, a sun, a purpose, a calling, but they weren’t touching.
Not yet.
 
It made me realise how often I feel like I’m right on the edge.
So close to stepping into who I’m meant to be.
I commit to a direction, feel the fire… and then I hesitate.
I question. I pull back.
I wonder if I’m enough, if I really have what it takes.
 
But I also know this:
I no longer want to follow paths that don’t feel like mine.
Because what I do want is something real.
Something deeper.
Something with meaning, my meaning.
 
This painting gave me a truth I didn’t expect:
That I am no longer lost.
I’m just not there yet.
But I’m reaching.
I’m becoming.
And even in the tension, even in the distance...I am almost.