Becoming

breemercado
Jan 24
3 min read

2025 ended in reflection.

Not the neat, celebratory kind — but the kind that asks you to sit with yourself longer than you expected.

In many ways, this year felt agonizing. Mostly in my head. And when I zoom out, that realization feels almost embarrassing, because when I look at my life plainly, I know I am deeply blessed.

I have a home I love.

Food on my table — sometimes more than enough.

The ability to buy art supplies and express myself through them.

A job filled with good people.

Creative friends I met this year who are walking similar paths, sharing in the uncertainty and the magic of choosing a creative life.

I have faith — a spiritual practice that reminds me we are connected, and that contributing goodness matters.

I have two dogs who make me laugh and lose my patience in equal measure.

And I have a loving wife — kind, supportive, and truly in it with me. The kind of partner who stands at my art markets selling my work like it’s her own dream too.

By all accounts, this is a beautiful life.

And still — this year felt heavy.

Letting Go of Old Versions of Myself

I think the weight came from many places at once.

The state of the world.

The suffering so many are enduring.

The constant grind of being a creative — chasing stability, purpose, and a future that feels increasingly difficult to reach in a system that asks for everything and gives so little back.

And my health.

This year my body demanded attention I hadn’t been giving it. Hormones out of balance. Doctor visits. Procedures I couldn’t afford all at once. Months spent paying things off, slowly. The realization that we don’t live in a particularly healthy world — or at least, not one that makes caring for ourselves easy.

Sometimes I wonder if all of this lives mostly inside my own small perspective — my tiny world floating in a sea of infinite possibilities. But regardless, the experience has been real.

This year asked me to release the version of myself who believed she could push through everything without consequence.

The version who thought endurance alone was strength.

The version who confused control with safety.

What I’m Carrying Into This Year (and What I’m Not)

What I’m carrying forward is quieter now.

A growing awareness that change is happening whether I resist it or not.

A willingness to look in the mirror without flinching.

An understanding that growth isn’t clean — it’s disorienting, exhausting, and often uncomfortable.

I keep reminding myself:

Growth hurts.

Change is constant.

Everything is temporary.

To grow, I have to withstand pressure.

To grow, I have to embrace my flaws.

To grow, I have to loosen my grip on stubbornness and control.

To grow, I have to keep going — even when I feel unsure.

What I’m leaving behind is the belief that becoming should feel graceful the whole way through.

Painting Through Transition

This self-portrait lives in that in-between space.

It’s about great change.

About resilience.

About trusting the promise of something brighter on the other side — even when I can’t fully see it yet.

I keep returning to the image of a caterpillar in transformation. How, in order to become something new, its insides must completely liquify — dissolving into what is essentially a soup — before reforming into something with wings.

That process isn’t pretty.

It isn’t comfortable.

And from the outside, it probably looks like destruction.

But it’s not.

It’s becoming.

And so this portrait is a reminder — to myself first — that even when everything feels undone, something is still forming.

Or at least, I hope. 😬🙃

This piece was completed with acrylic on paper.

Size: 18”X24”

January 2026

If this reflection resonated…

I created a free reflection guide inspired by The Selfie Project — a quiet space to sit with identity, self-perception, and becoming.