Without a Filter – The Story of My Body | Kamilla
Updated: Oct 11
When two artists meet, there is a good chance something unusual will be created. Kamilla painted the story of her life in words, blending reality with fiction; I translated it into images.
I am twenty years old, crying in the bathroom: "My father is going to kill me." "I don't want a child." Yet I don't want to hurt the baby. I love it immediately and stroke my stomach. Contradiction.
I get married. The parish priest refuses to marry us, saying that in my situation I do not have genuine freedom of choice. He tells me to come and talk to him and think it through. I think he is an asshole — years later I understand that he was the only person who looked at me with a clear heart and truly saw me. Another priest marries us.
Somehow, from the age of twenty, I increasingly watch myself from the outside and keep explaining to myself that everything will be fine. A beautiful family. Three children. That typical "mother brain" that makes it possible not to look at yourself because there is always someone else to live for. And often I really believe it.
I play roles, as a perfectionist. I try to meet expectations. I try to please the parents of their only son — and perhaps this current crisis will finally lead my husband to cut the umbilical cord that should have been cut thirty years ago. I try beyond my limits, yet I am never enough, never good enough.
I cook every day. I am the one awake at night with the children. I take them everywhere.
My father becomes ill. He is forty-nine. When he is fifty, I bury the Man whose energy nobody around me has ever matched — the man I knew was a fortress. I collapse.
I continue like a robot. I work, raise three children and run a household — and apparently never well enough. I am reminded of that constantly.
I don't feel that I matter to anyone. Lunch must be ready. Clothes must be clean. Homework must be done. The salary must be good. I am noticed only when something is missing.
I cry, I beg: I'm here. I'm empty. I'm tired.
"That's just your energy level. We're different. This is simply all you can handle," Mum says.
My husband does not hear me. Nobody hears me.
I make a decision and make it conscious: I have one life, and I am responsible for it. My happiness does not have to depend on somebody else.
I long for the feeling I imagine painting must bring. Life places the perfect person, the best teacher, in my path. I begin learning to draw, and two months later I paint my first picture. A wonderful friendship is born, a sense of family, paintings full of emotion. Qigong helps too.
I recharge. I become stronger. And I am endlessly grateful.
Now I know what I do not want.
I do not want to please everyone. I do not want to play roles. I do not care what others think. I do not want to be held to account. I do not want a golden cage. I do not want relationships built on hierarchy and dependence. I will not allow people to hurt me.
I realise that I am good enough.
I realise that the hurt inflicted on me was not really about me.
Slowly, the people around me begin to understand what they are losing. It hurts — but unfortunately it comes too late.
For many years I could not truly experience it, but I love being a Woman. I love and accept the fluctuations of female existence. I experience them, and I want to experience every aspect of them.
I love to love. I love to feel. I love being the way I am. And slowly, I am beginning to believe again that I can be loved.
Very much so.
Humanly, beautifully imperfect.
Art photography – details.