To understand this story, you must learn the nine-year cycle. When I look back at my life, I say, “I remember in my last personal year 3, I made more art than usual.” I don’t say, “In 2021, I made more art.”
Numerology is the metaphysical significance of numbers. It’s essentially astrology but with numbers. Before I got sick with schizophrenia, I was obsessed with this practice. Now I avoid it because it fuels my OCD, and I run from any spirituality that isn’t God. But personal years? I can’t escape them, like when I’m in the car, adding up licence plates. It’s a habit that won’t die.
The personal year cycle is a journey. Learning the garden metaphor is the best way to understand. The AI overview says it best. Let’s go year by year through my numerology cycle.
The 9-Year Garden Cycle
Year 1: Planting Seeds (Spring) – A fresh start where you plant new initiatives, seeds, and ideas. A time fo.independence, creativity, and setting new intention.
I was making art and poetry when my last personal year 1 started. I had just Frida Kahlo-d my hair, meaning I chopped it off. Eventually, I shaved my head. It was a blank slate. I was hearing voices, like ghosts. I also thought all the brains in the world were connected. I look back at the poetry I did before getting to residential, and am conflicted. Some poems are amazing, some are the scrawlings of a lunatic. The art was some of my best. When I got to Timberline Knolls, a long-term mental hospital, I switched gears completely to poetry. During the year before this, I got into many lit mags and anthologies. I was fresh off the success of being the lead poem in a magazine called Bramble. I wrote in notebooks full of poetry and made it a goal to start a literary magazine. You’re not going to believe this, but a pencil appeared in midair. God wanted me to write these poems. They were on high, and they were my best. When they moved me to another residential facility, they gave me my computer, and I wrote even more. Then one day, I passed out because I wasn’t eating. They sent me to Fairhaven in Memphis, an eating disorder facility. I was always lying in a hammock, talking to my characters. It was amazing, writing about the universe in my head. However, when I got diagnosed with schizoaffective and got put on medication, they all turned on me. Don’t trust voices in your head.
Year 2: Nurturing Growth (Tending) – A slow, gentle year to nurture the seeds planted. Focus on cooperation, patience, and building relationships.
I started feeling better at Rogers Residential because I was making art. I knew I had a collection or a few collections at this point, and I was looking to illustrate my poems. I got out in early 2020 and moved into a group home in Waukesha. It was the first day of the Covid lockdown. I had no patience in Year 2. I was so disorganized, and my novel wasn’t happening naturally. I started just lying around, waiting for the voices to stop. I couldn’t make art. It was the worst year of my life. I was in and out of mental hospitals and switched group homes twice. I kept trying to get hit by trains. Then one day, I was successful. After my surgeries, I became a patient at Waukesha County Mental Hospital. The doctor advised me to go back to art. Best advice I have ever been given.
Year 3: Sprouting & Flowering (Growth) – Growth becomes visible. A social year for expansion, creativity, self-expression, and enjoyment.
This was one of the best years of my life. I always love personal year threes. I was at a residential facility called Trempealeau. I drew nonstop and made a few lifelong friends. I started realizing I could make money at art, although I was just happy with my paint pens. I didn’t write much poetry, but I met a woman who changed how I view my words. I don’t remember how she first read my poems, but the staff printed out some of them for her. When she wasn’t reading my poems, she cried a lot and begged for an electric shock. My poems eased her. It was interesting seeing her interact with them. I was just happy to bring peace to her.
Year 4: Weeding & Hardening (Structure) – A focus on stability, hard work, and building solid foundations. Time for weeding out what doesn’t work to strengthen your garden.
One of my last weeks at Trempealeau, my therapist read my poetry. She had great things to say. About my novel, too. Hey, Joey Journal. I needed to hear about HJJ. Low sales really got to me. I wasn’t confident about some scenes, too. They let a man read HJJ, and he said it was a five-star book, which made me feel good because he read every book on campus. When an avid reader likes your work, it’s an amazing feeling.
When I got out, I started posting my drawings from treatment on Instagram and started working with my mentor on what I eventually called Bleeding Acrylic. The work we did together was amazing. I don’t remember how long we worked on it, but I believed in it.
Year 5: Pivoting & Pruning (Change) – A year of rapid growth, adaptability, and change. Time to test new approaches and prune unnecessary growth.
By personal year 5, I was submitting. It seemed that all of the literary publications cost money to submit to. I didn’t have the money. If I had it, Mexican Leprechaun monitored the money spent. This is not his name. I’m changing names here. ML was one of the owners of a great group home I was in before moving back to Waukesha. Now I have my own bank account and card, but I wasn’t even getting into publishers that cost no money. We looked into hybrid publishing, which wasn’t the answer either. I felt defeated. I knew I had something special in Bleeding Acrylic, just no home for it.
Year 6: Tending the Garden (Nurturing) – A peak growth year focusing on responsibility, family, harmony, and beautifying your environment.
I started doing well at the group home once I started making art more regularly. They built me a basement studio. Near the end of the year, God sent me a sign that’s hard to explain. God wanted me to work solely on art. There were many signs. Harmony came back into my life.
Year 7: Cultivating Inner Space (Rest/Observation) – A quieter, introspective year. Focus on spiritual growth, study, and reflecting on the garden’s progress.
Very seldom did I write during this year. I’m always nervous during personal year sevens. The first personal year 7 I can remember, I was nearly bullied to death. The personal year seven before my most recent one was amazing. I finished Hey, Joey Journal. Traveled some. Met a lifelong mentor. They say personal year 7 is great for writing. True, but this was one of the best art years of my life. I sold a lot of art and met even more mentors through Arts for All, Donna Lexa, and Studio 84. One of the best years.
I got to thinking about blogging because I began to miss how it felt to write Learn with Colleen. It was a public diary I kept during my college-aged years. I missed the freedom. I did an experiment starting around September of 2025. I posted once a week, all poems from Bleeding Acrylic (the book) to Bleeding Acrylic (the blog).
Year 8: Harvesting & Abundance (Reaping) – A year for reaping rewards, financial growth, and reaping the results of your hard work.
Starting this blog changed everything. It became a home to my art, my poetry, and my merch. Bleeding Acrylic is now acting as my website. It has made me more confident, like with the coloring book I’m publishing now. Back in February, I had an important interaction with a woman at NAMI Friendships. It’s a place for the mentally ill to go during the day. I was given a beautiful notebook. I used it for poetry and doodles. That’s when I started taking this blog seriously. I bumped it up to three times a week. Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. I tried doing it every day, but the perfect number is three times a week. I am so done with traditional publishing. It makes me an insufferable, money-hungry monster. This is me purely doing it for myself. I haven’t had that feeling since Learn with Colleen. I’d love more views. I’m aiming for more, but it’s been nice going through the remnants of my 9-year cycle. The poetry has benefited my art, too. I was looking for images for each poem and found a style that I’m now using for my first-ever gallery show. I still make mostly visual art, but I know that the poetry was worth it and can now edit the poems from the beginning of my cycle. It feels good going on my own.
Year 9: Clearing (Composting). The final year is a time of letting go, clearing the field, and composting. It is a year of completion where you release, forgive, and clear space for the new cycle beginning in Year 1.
This blog started with seeds and grew with me. I can’t wait to see how this story ends. Keep coming here for my poems on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Expect more self-published works, including a coloring book and an art book featuring my very best poems. You can read this blog like a book. Go to the bottom of the page and press the word previous or click on your favorite images when you look at the archive. It’s nice having you watch me bloom on canvas and in my poetry.