Shrinking Looks Like Peace: A Version Of Me.
A version of me stands at a platform.
I’ve been drawing him recently.
Not in a dramatic, table-flipping way. It’s really quite innocuous. More like a quiet recalibration. I’ve been trying to unearth some core beliefs (read: feelings) around identity, roles, grief and personal relationships.
I’ve spent so many years of my life trying to simply be productive. Responsible. Steady.
I’ve shown up in relationships. I’ve worked hard at jobs. I’ve built significant things like a rental property and creative contractor business.
But somewhere along the way, I started shrinking into myself.
Not externally.
But internally.
For me, shrinking doesn’t actually look like failure.
It looks more like compliance.
It looks like keeping the peace and remaining steady.
It looks like staying busy, so you don’t have to feel the slow erosion of something essential.
Ironically enough, that something, was the aliveness that came from simply creating. That said, I should be clear:
I’m not blowing anything up.
I’m not making wild declarations.
I’m just noticing where I’ve been disappearing.
And choosing, quietly, not to anymore.
The Delusion of Stability.
From the outside, that version of me looks stable.
He looks fine.
That’s the trick.
Talk about responsibility.
Work.
Showing up.
Being steady.
Being “fine.”
It turns out, a lot of people are terrible at explaining themselves. I’ve never had that problem, I can justify away a multitude of things, I can argue on both sides of a position, easily. One of the benefits of working in marketing for almost two decades, I guess?
I can narrate my life beautifully.
I can explain why things make sense.
I can intellectualize my way through almost anything.
But when asked to describe what I actually feel, I hesitate.
I routinely get complimented on my communications skills and storytelling ability. “You’re incredible at weaving a narrative of your experiences and following a path that connects it all together. You are reflective and it shows.”
And that statement lingers.
What rarely gets said, maybe because it’s uncomfortable, is that I’m not great at addressing the core feelings. I make jokes, I deflect, I ask questions instead.
Sometimes a brave one will ask me to “expand” or “explain” myself. Not in a dramatic way, of course.
No, it’s subtle and gentle, but what hits me each time I get asked to expand or go deeper, is that it ALWAYS feels deeply personal and intense to be addressing these emotions. I thought I already gave you my best effort. But now you want more? And going back to the well brings up buried emotions. But in a subtle way.
Shrinking doesn’t look like collapse. It looks like: compliance, “I’m good,” “this is what adults do.” These are the threads we’ve been pulling at.
I. Paint the feeling of dullness
Dullness doesn’t arrive loudly. It settles.
It sounds like the television running in the background while you scroll instead of sketch.
It looks like saying “maybe tomorrow” to the things that used to feel urgent.
It feels like a low electrical hum in your chest. Flatness.
II. Draw the low hum
It’s not crisis.
It’s not that you don’t care.
It’s that you’ve learned to conserve your depth. To ration intensity.
To hold back expansion unless it’s invited.
III. Mark the quiet withdrawal
Withdrawal isn’t dramatic.
It’s contributing less in conversations because you’re tired of translating yourself.
It’s choosing the safer topic or none at all.
It’s nodding instead of expanding.
IV. Erase the historic loneliness
It’s carrying depth that rarely gets met.
It’s explaining yourself well, but not feeling understood.
It’s being articulate, but not fully witnessed.
Over time, you stop expecting to be met. You edit yourself in advance.
I got very good at that.
So instead of only verbally explaining myself, I picked up a pencil again. And started to confront my feelings.
The Catalytic Moment.
Recently someone stood with me at that platform. We traced a pattern I’ve known for years.
When I feel unseen, I mute.
When I mute, I withdraw.
When I withdraw, I tell myself its a form of peace.
That same person also made an excellent suggestion, and an offer. To focus less on explanation and more on feeling.
She suggested a simple exercise. Watch the film Soul.
Not to analyze it.
Not to explain why it works.
But to notice how I felt.
“And if you really want to give me the cinematic review, themes and such I’m happy to have that conversation with you, but I really want to learn how you felt during the course of movie.”
Well played.
I saw myself in the protagonist Joe, unshockingly. Chasing the break, the moment, the proof that his life meant something. Believing that if he just got the right opportunity, the right outcome, everything would click into place.
But the film isn’t really about getting the gig. Or finding meaning in our passions. Though you could easily interpret it that way.
It’s about aliveness.
Somewhere along the way, I realized I had confused meaning with achievement.
For me, aliveness doesn’t come from “making it.”
It comes from feeling met.
Feeling understood.
Feeling expansive instead of edited.
And when I don’t feel that, well, I shrink.
I even tried to shrink in that follow-up conversation. To say, maybe my creativity and art are just a vehicle to navigate life, they aren’t part of me. And she corrected me.
“No, your art and your creativity ARE part of who you are. They are a language for you. When you close off that language, you stop speaking.”
Well, fuck.
The Pencil
Sometimes the platform has tracks on both sides. After that conversation, I made a decision.
I didn’t journal more.
I didn’t debate it.
I didn’t draft a manifesto.
I drew.
First, a skeleton.
Not dramatic. Not symbolic on purpose. Just structure. Bone. Frame. An exercise in line.
Second came a mountain scene with paint markers. Air. Space. Colour. Light.
Then a collage of elements: a gramophone, a lighthouse, an old man with a pipe. Memory. Inheritance. Voice.
And recently, a man stripped of everything, standing at the train platform. Actually, a skeleton. A version of me standing alone, waiting. Not abandoned. Not broken. Just untethered.
I thought perhaps re-integration would feel explosive.
It didn’t.
It felt quiet.
Like waiting for an LRT at night.
Like driving alone.
Like walking after midnight through West Edmonton Mall after university with nowhere to rush to.
Just untethered. Memories flooding back with every moment of contact with the paper.
It wasn’t because no one wanted me.
But because I wasn’t editing myself in advance.
This is where I expand.
I didn’t set out to draw transition.
But apparently, my nervous system did.
I live in structures.
But my aliveness shows up in the wrong places.
Or the “unexpected” places.
Like a candle housed in a room of stone and steel.
Structure holds me. But the flame is still mine. Perhaps the skeleton needs some colour before that fourth drawing is done.
Shrinking looks like peace.
It’s calm on the surface. Predictable. Manageable.
It avoids friction. It preserves stability.
But it dulls the edges. It edits in advance. It asks the artist to sit quietly so the adult can function.
Integration feels different.
It’s steady — but not soft.
It carries tension. It requires visibility.
It risks being seen in full colour inside a room built for bone and line.
I’m not blowing anything up.
I’m just done disappearing.
theories Summarized
Integration means the artist doesn’t get exiled so the adult can function.
The ambitious part doesn’t get softened so the peace can hold.
The depth doesn’t get minimized so things stay comfortable.
It means you stop amputating pieces of yourself to fit environments.
I’m not writing this to indict anyone.
Shrinking can be self-inflicted.
It’s the survival strategy of someone who values harmony. But harmony without authenticity eventually becomes disconnection. These past few weeks reminded me of something simple:
I don’t suffer from lack of ability.
I suffer when I feel unseen, including by myself.
Picking up the pencil again meant reclaiming interior space.
And that might be the most important work I’ve done in a while.
It’s steady.
Not explosive. Not dramatic.
Just oxygen.
And right now, that’s enough.
