The Impressionist Read Online Free PDF Page B

anger…and guilt…and disappointment. I could go on and on. You got a notebook and pen on you? I’ll fill it up!” An emotional dam was breaking inside me and all this stuff was spilling out. “I’m drained, dried up, and burnt out…and I’m unhappy, Jim Ed! I can’t remember the last time I actually enjoyed life. I deal with pressures all day long and demanding clients. I’m on the road way too much. If I see another airport I’m going to croak! When I finally get home I’m worn out and on edge. But here’s the funny thing; Paige and my communication is actually better when I’m away!
    “Now she’s thinking about leaving me. May have already left. And our son’s an addict. We’re watching him flush his future down the toilet! I don’t know what to do. I didn’t sign up for this! How’d my life turn out like this? I’m ashamed to say this, but there have been days when I feel so beat up I’ve considered ending it all. This very morning, right when you walked up, I was fantasizing about leaving everything—just walking away or maybe going to sleep and never waking up. There’s no contentment in my life, none. And peace? I don’t even know what that means at this point. I’m numb Jim Ed, just plain numb.”
    Jim Ed chewed on my words carefully before finally responding. “Numbness can be the greatest predator,” he said. “You’re in a war whether you realize it or not. Denying it or going numb as you say causes you to lose your passion for life. God gave you emotions for a reason. Sometimes you got to get scared enough or angry enough to fight. Filling your life with substitutes just anesthetizes the hole inside you. It’s the enemy’s way of keeping you disengaged and keeping you from fighting for what’s important.”
    “I told you I’m tired of fighting,” I said. “It seems the more I fight, the worse things get. It’s like I’m in quicksand. The more I struggle to get ahead, the further behind I get. I’m done fighting. Paige doesn’t understand.”
    Jim Ed got very still, thinking. A group of college-age girls power walked by, laughing and talking loudly. He let them pass before he opened his mouth. “Sounds to me like you’ve got to get yourself a new pair of eyes,” he said. “Change the way you’re seeing.”
    “Huh?” I said, tilting my head confused. “I can see just fine, dude. My life pretty much sucks right now. That’s crystal clear.”
    Jim Ed leaned forward to emphasize his point. “You know Adam, great artists have great vision. They have the ability to see beyond the surface deep into the soul of what they are painting. The difference between an average work and a masterpiece is a masterpiece doesn’t copy. It captures. Captures the soul of the subject and then reflects that soul onto the canvas.”
    “What’s that got to do with me?” I asked. “I’m no artist, that’s for sure. Couldn’t paint my way out of a wet paper bag.”
    “People paint all kinds of portraits, Adam,” Jim Ed continued, “just not always with a brush. Their life is a canvas, and they are the brush. Like this brush in my hand leaves an impression with each stroke, they leave an impression on everything they do or come in contact with. And one day, when they’re stretched out in their coffin, there’ll be a portrait of their life that somebody’s going to be looking over. What kind of portrait is your life painting, Adam Camp?”
    The question hit me unexpectedly like a two-by-four right between the eyes. My whole body stiffened.
What kind of portrait is my life painting?
Part of me was offended. I mean the nerve of asking such a question.
“Adam Camp, what kind of portrait is your life painting?”
As Jim Ed went back to work and I watched him dancing with the brush in his hands, the truth about me began to sink in. My shoulders sank because I was all too aware of what kind of impressions I’d been leaving—ruts, debris, rubble, wreckage. The fact was, if I had died on