12 months ago I was at the bottom of the sea where the light no longer reaches and the water no longer reflects the blue sky. Well, not literally. (FYI: I don’t know how to swim.) But that’s what I thought it would feel like if I had been. The reason I was there was simple: a relationship I felt happy and proud enough to share with my family for the first time in my adulthood had ended. Badly. After the breakup, I wasn’t quite myself for months and I was tired of feeling that way.
One day I was reading a chapter called ‘Facing Suffering’ in The Art of Happiness by Dalai Lama. According to the spiritual leader, ‘If you directly confront your suffering, you will be in a better position to appreciate the depth and nature of the problem.’ It made lot more sense than any other self-help advices I’d obsessively read online.
So I stopped ignoring the draining feeling. I accepted my sadness as it was. That’s when Emma, my alter ego if you will, was born and I started writing about her. Then, I decided to illustrate it and turn those illustrations into a zine.
In the next post, I will share the writing inspired the illustration called Current.
Momoko Abe Illustration 
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