LYN
AFTER DARK
For night owls, overthinkers, weird girls,
tired millennials and anybody who remembers
staying up too late with the TV glowing
in an otherwise dark house.
The journal came out.
The drawings got stranger.
The feelings got louder.
When the house finally gets quiet.
Dreamy, tender, romantic and reflective. For remembering, imagining and staring at the ceiling a little too long.
Can't sleep. Brain won't shut up.
Anxiety, dark humor, absurdity and the thoughts that somehow become very important at 1:37 in the morning.
A midnight garden.
One image turned into its own nocturnal little world.
Spooky
With
Attitude.
Where the attitude comes from
Lyn After Dark is where I let the attitude stay. These drawings come from the parts of myself I'm usually expected to soften: the sarcasm, the side-eye, the anxiety, the irritation, the overthinking — the things that get louder when everything gets quiet.
The face says:
Absolutely not.
The body says:
We're working on it.
What it's really about
The work isn't really about being miserable or mean. It's about trying. Trying to stretch. Trying to grow. Trying to be kinder. Trying to trust people. Trying to take care of myself. The body might be doing yoga while the face still looks completely over it. I can be soft and guarded, generous and sarcastic, exhausted and still making the effort. I'm not drawing a perfected version of healing. I'm documenting the awkward, funny and uncomfortable process of becoming a little better than yesterday without losing the parts of me that make me me.
The Halloween shelf.
Some things only come out at night.
The TV is still on. The journal is still open. And apparently my brain has one more idea.