What Frida teaches us about pain, the body and living

Life goes on, whether we like it or not. Hours, days, years pass, time passes, we change and grow old. We don't have much influence over that. On the other hand, how much we participate in our lives- there we definitely have a say.⁣

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I still haven't met a person who said: "Everything in my life has always been great." I don't even believe I'll meet them. Even if I did, I imagine them as someone whom I would find pretty boring. It seems that life would find that boring as well. That is why, I guess, it often gives us various obstacles and misfortunes, and then it is our time to show what we’re made of. Sometimes it seems that when they get what they didn't want from life, people demonstratively decide not to participate in it. Much like a child that didn't get the toy they wanted, so they say "Well, then I don’t want to play!"

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Whatever cards were dealt to her, Frida Kahlo wanted and knew how to play with them. Frida was born with a severe form of scoliosis, which made one of her legs thinner and shorter. At the age of eighteen, she had a car accident when a bus bar went right through her and caused problems that would follow her for the rest of her life. She started painting at the hospital. She lived with great and constant pain, but she painted. She loved a man who cheated on her with countless women. She still painted. She loved, suffered and painted to the very end. When her first solo exhibition was held in Mexico, she was in such poor condition that her doctor forbade her to get out of bed. Her request was: "Doctor, if you let me drink this tequila, I promise you that I will not drink at my funeral." Together with her bed, she requested to be taken to the exhibition, sang and drank together with all the visitors. She passed away soon after.⁣

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Frida's story shows us how many times we can break down and how much life has to offer if, despite the breakdowns, we decide to participate in it again and again. Take another good look at what cards have been assigned to you - what kind of a body, what kind of parents, what kind of a past, what kind of abilities. Are you playing or waiting to get better cards?