I really want to play off of this quote by Taylor Swift when she was talking about her song this is me trying: “I’ve been thinking about addiction and I’ve been thinking about people who.. if they are either suffering through mental illness or they are suffering through addiction or.. they have an everyday struggle. No one pats them on the back everyday. Everyday they are actively fighting something, but there are so many days where nobody gives them credit for that. And so how often must somebody who is in that sort of internal struggle must wanna say to everyone in the room ‘you have no idea how close I am to going back to a dark place’ or ‘you have no idea’.”
I want my shrine to focus on every day picking up the pieces of your life and actively fighting your demons. As someone who struggles with mental illness but is very good at acting normal this is very personal to me. Every single day I have to fight to take care of myself, fight to make my bed, fight to put things away. I am actively trying everyday to put the pieces of my life together and as Taylor said, no one gives you a pat on the back. In keeping with my theme of skeletons, I want to show a skeleton that has fallen apart and is putting itself back together. I would say that this shrine is a way of patting myself on the back but I think it could also speak to others who may not even realize that they are putting themselves back together and how hard that is and deserving of a pat on the back.