The Art of Being Alive



Gabe had  relationship problems when he was a young hes was more agitated than the other children, he understood the world differently, his parents always said "it's a phase", because in fact the time of restlessness passed, when the boy had his fourteen years, began to be interested in art, his sensitivity was incredible, no classes or any kind of orientation began to paint, the parents impressed decided to invest in Gabe who at first followed ferociously his routine having blind discipline the arts, but with the passing of years he was lost, for him nothing of that made concrete sense. At the age of sixteen, Gabe decided to go back to painting, but now his art seemed darker, every brushstroke was as if the weight of the world were on his back; the young man came from school, barely spoke to anyone and locked himself in the improvised studio, connected the sound in the last volume with his songs of melancholic rock and spent the rest of the day painting, sometimes his parents felt the smell of marijuana coming from the studio and only they were ignorant because it was just another "phase". Behind the 19 years, Gabe felt misunderstood even being accepted in the best art institution in his city, he thought that something will always be missing; a few months after he had moved to college he received perhaps the worst news of his life, his father had died of a sudden illness. He immediately proposed that his mother return to live with her, but the woman refused; that's when things started to get worse. First a creative block, then the worsening of his chronic depression, as if everything was not bad enough, Gabe began to have fits of anger, where he broke everything that was in his way and then did not remember anything, his roommates they got worried and got in touch with the boy's mother who did not hesitate for a second and had him lock his license plate and go back to live with her temporarily until things calmed down.
  Without questioning the boy, the boy returned with his mother; every morning in the morning he woke up for no reason and cried, then went down to the kitchen where he had coffee with his mother while smoking a cigarette, after lunch went to the psychologist where he stayed for an hour there, went home, went to his atelier where he painted and listened to music, later went to dinner with his mother, took a shower and lay down on the couch to watch some movie, until he was sleepy and go to his room to sleep, taking a few bad days, followed the next six months. Until the day she talked to her mother and said she wanted to go back to college, in the face of her remarkable improvement, her mother did not question.
 If it was three years, Gabe was fine, he painted like never before, sometimes had a few complicated nights, and dark days, but he was transient, his humor was not constant, but he managed to get along with the people around him, he only wondered if this conviviality he was given the remedies he was obliged to take every day to wake up and sleep, he feared that he was approaching madness as he had been told before, he was afraid of losing his mind at any moment, and sometimes it would appear on his canvases.
  Her graduation was finally coming, her anxiety crises worse, one night while Gabe smoked a cigarette on the balcony of her apartment, remembered the present
that his father had given him at the age of fifteen, a pistol of his great-great-grandfather; went back to his room and took the box he kept under his bed, opened it and there was the gun, took it in his hands and began to walk aimlessly through the apartment.
Another cigarette.
Silence.
 Gabe, who had the gun loaded in his hands, placed it pointed at his temple, cocked, leaving his finger ready to burst his head. It was when his cell phone rang, it was his mother, he thought not to answer, but he answered, and the first sentence he said was "Thank you, Mother.", The terror of that night had passed.
On the long awaited day of graduation, an exhibition with the screens of the trainees would take place; after the ceremony, each trainee would stand by his canvases to show the public his work, it was when a much wanted teacher of Gabe walked in his direction and noticed the look of anguish at the uncertainty that lay ahead, and at the same time, anxiety, and happiness for the same reason of anguish; the old man put his hand on the boy's left shoulder and began to speak.
"I can not guarantee that it will be easy, that sometimes you will feel like giving up, but listen to what this old man tells you, you were one of the best students I have had until today, have confidence and always remember that, it is It is preferable to believe that madness is nothing but excess of genius; when children denote you hyperactive, with attention problems, associable; as a teenager, they call you strange and depressive, as an adult there are two groups; those who claim that you are crazy, and those who claim that you are a genius, then it is up to you to choose who you are. Congratulations, Gabe. "
The boy just stared at the old man as if those words were exactly what he needed to hear, and from that moment forward Gabe was ready.