Behind the Art with Felecia

My knee-jerk reaction to the PERSPECTIVE emotion was to look back on my life "from here" I've done a number of these kinds of layouts from various ages, so wanted to approach it differently.

During a little cropping session with my friends, we got to talking about imagery associated with looking at things from a distance - planes in particular...as we conversed, hot air balloons came up. The more I thought about this topic, the more I believed my journey has been far more balloon-like than plane-like in nature - sort of floating with a purpose.

Problem for me - I don't have a lot of hot air balloons in my stash...I toyed with some stamps, and cutting them from different shapes. I drew some and also downloaded some clip art from the internet to perhaps fussy cut them...

And then I got to playing with my new Cricut Explore and found these amazing balloons...

And my layout was born...

I approached the journaling as a pretty simple list and just arranged them in a way that flowed for me. There are so many things I've come to realize about myself and my journey when I reflect on the many different "lives" I lived before now.

From 44, I have to say, life is pretty amazing.

There are a lot of things I have "discovered" and it seems like maybe this is the time in my life I am most at peace with what "is" vs. perhaps what was or what will be.

I wish I had known this peace and settled feeling earlier in life. I like how things are calmer, that I understand that people let you down and that is ok, that love is risky and worth every heartbreak and that health is more important than appearances...

Its a tremendously encouraging exercise to list the things I've learned on my journey this way and to think of my life as if looking down from a hot air balloon. I don't think we give ourselves enough time and space to appreciate our own growth and the many things we come to appreciate in our lives. This was certainly an inspiring way to take stock.