Self Portrait

I looked at the plain white canvas purposely. Holding my paintbrush I started to place the tip of the brush delicately smothering the surface of the canvas. How careful I was of placing paint onto the canvas - its pure glory. Little detail by little detail curves and lines became shapes. Smudges transformed into shades of different hues. I kept placing oil paint onto my palette and from the palette it gets expressed onto the canvas. The former white glory had been replaced by a face - my face with every crease and fold - a replica.


I smiled and let it dry for awhile, enough for it to be placed from my previous work. I hung it up on the right side, just along my past self-portrait which I made about three years ago.


I suddenly gasped with horror. Positioning alongside each other was a mistake.


My insecurities, can of worms which I have safely closed and placed in the innermost of my thoughts have gone creeping up as if awakened from a deep sleep yet this time their resurfacing was more pronounced.


Fine lines, wrinkles, tired and weary eyes have been the outcome after three years. The eyes which I have been known for, to have expressive ones were now lacking. Gone were the days when I could stare and invoke such a reaction from a person.


How I have missed that.


The fine lines that have been there since college circa have doubled in number, most prominent along the cheeks and nose but also along the outside part of my eyes. It is irritating.


Wrinkles which have appeared very recently have been frustrating and scary. To see a little loosening of the skin makes me wonder - what will happen to me in the next three years?


A few tears trickled down my eyes and I resigned to a nearby couch, confused and in despair.


I can not take the latter down nor the former but for now I can not bear to look at both of them. I sighed and slumped further onto my seat. It is of no use. Ageing is inevitable, mortality is inevitable.


And so a crisis has opened again.