How Beautiful Are These Comics About Finding Your Way?

A couple of weeks ago, our wonderful collaborator Ruth Chan sent me to Joanna and me an email with these comics and a note: “I recently found these comics that I had done years ago while I was going through the most difficult moment of my life. I called them ‘portraits of the insecure’. I still cry reading them, so I thought they could resonate with the COJ readers.

As soon as I click them, I also felt that my throat was squeezed and torn well. Because in each comic, with an adorable animal that shares a confession about feeling lost or hugging a lesson won, I also saw a small part of myself. Here are the comics, plus a Q&A with Ruth …

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Jannelle: When you drew these comics, what was happening in your life?
Ruth: I was 32 years old and I had just separated from my husband and I lost my job. I had to move from our joint apartment because I didn’t have the income to stay. Everything I knew suddenly was gone.

That is so difficult.
It was severely depressed. The only thing I could drive were to walk my dog ​​and paint these animals. I started with just one, and then I kept doing one a day. Now, looking back, I can say that creating them was my way of processing everything I was feeling.

What kind of work did you say goodbye?
I was in the non -profit management based on the community, and in reality it was through the painting of these portraits that I began to obtain courage and the emotion of thinking: ‘Oh, maybe I do I want to be an illustrator. I was at the bottom, so there was nowhere to go but. These portraits were the beginning of the construction of a portfolio. I also started taking class illustration classes for children at the Visual Arts School.

Of this series, what comic does more with you resonate today?
The music band. These days, I’m still trying to stop controlling things. As a father, it seems especially difficult to understand, since all I want is to control chaos! But I have to actively tell me: ‘It’s Well If my daughter becomes messy. It’s fine if you don’t eat a lot of lunch because you want to spend time outside. May the day be unpredictable. Is good. ‘Because that’s when surprising things can happen, you know?

It is a great lesson.
In addition, pin one. It is very difficult for me to ask for help, although I know that my friends and family are there for me.

When you were reviewing your divorce, what did friends and family did?
My friend Jane raised the idea that we shared a blue apron subscription, which became routinely, going to the places of the other to cook together. I think that was his way of making sure he was not eating alone, or that he was even eating, in such a reflective and charming way. Every time I think of that period in my life, I remember devastation. But I am also overwhelmed in the wonderful ways in which my friends intervened without asking me.

Many of these comics are about accepting all the same. What have you learned about having your own personal identity?
What I love about these portraits is that all animals are defective. They are a bit dumb, a little broken, or a bit weird. And I think that refers to the idea that being our authentic beings helps us connect with other people. Trying to be perfect to each other is a barrier to build real and intimate relationships.

Finally, what would you say to someone who is going through a difficult time, when it is difficult to imagine that there is good on the other side?
There is often a great fear of change because you don’t know what is on the other side. But today I am standing on the other side and I am so happy. And if I had not lost my job, I don’t know if I would have become an illustrator. You never know what could come from a great change in your life, but it could be really wonderful and beautiful things. You just have to be open to it.

Thank you very much, Ruth!

PD: A trick to stop worrying, and why pain is like butter.