You know what I’m strangely grateful for?

That my mum gave me a paintbrush instead of a phone when I was little. I was at home, passionately mixing acrylics like a tiny Victorian orphan with unresolved emotions and delusions of gallery grandeur. Honestly, if glitter glue counted as fine art, I would’ve peaked at 11.

She bought me everything oils, brushes, paints that smelled like migraines in a tube. Did I have formal training? Absolutely not. I was self-taught, self-deluded, and wildly expressive painting fruit bowls like they held the secrets to the universe.

Then… books.

Enter: Twilight.

I was 14, hormonal, and fully convinced Edward Cullen was my soulmate. Buying books became my new obsession. My mum would give me lunch money, and instead of spending it on food like a normal teen, I’d starve for fiction. Who needs calories when you’ve got chapters and cheekbones?

By 17, painting had left me on read.

At 18, I moved in with my dad. He bought me an iPhone. That was the beginning of the end.

Books? Ghosted.

Painting? Dead.

Me? Posting filtered selfies and Googling “how to be hot and mysterious without trying.”

I had become the girl my mum specifically warned me about. Untamed. “Over-accessorized”. Slightly “feral”.

Fast-forward to 22.5 years old (yes, the half matters I’d just figured out how taxes work), and boom: “he enters into my life”. One of first date? We went to a bookshop. Like absolute nerds in love.

He bought 12 Rules for Life.

I bought The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F**k by Mark… somthing..(sorry Mark)

He can draw. Like, properly. With pencils and patience. He introduced me to stippling (which sounds like a foot disease but is actually just… drawing with a stupid number of dots).

Then he asked me, “Why did you stop painting?”

Cue emotional damage.

In 2025, he bought me a new set of acrylics. I bought canvases. I picked up the brush like it was Excalibur. First attempt? Looked like a clown funeral. But the spark was back and this time, it felt like me. Not just some childhood coping mechanism.

Now, our home is unintentionally transforming into an art gallery. (Seriously. There’s a canvas in the kitchen. We’re one brushstroke away from charging an entry fee.) But good lord canvases are expensive. Like, absurdly expensive. So I’m now pacing myself before I accidentally bankrupt us in the name of “artistic expression.”

Moral of the story:

• Paint more.
• Read more.
• Don’t trust phones.
• Most importantly marry someone who buys you paint and calls your weird clown art “expressive.”
• And never waste lunch money on actual lunch that’s what personal growth is for.

Loads of luv

Hannah