Life Sharing Moments: No Regrets, Destiny Knows Better
Life Sharing Moments is my fifth abstract painting series. It looks at the quiet, everyday ways two lives become one. The shared choices. The hard seasons faced side by side. The ordinary days that, over time, build something lasting. Each of the five paintings captures a different moment in that journey, and each comes with its own blog post.
This is the first.
The Journey You Did Not Plan
Some journeys are planned. Others plan themselves.
You set out with a clear picture. The route is mapped. The destination is chosen. Then life quietly takes you somewhere else.
At first, the place feels unfamiliar. Perhaps even unwelcome. But you stay. You build. You choose it, day after day. Slowly, you begin to understand. This is where you were always going. You just did not know it yet.
That idea is the heart of No Regrets, Destiny Knows Better. It is the first painting in my new series, Life Sharing Moments.
Life Sharing Moments: A New Series
My earlier series looked at small events that most of us barely notice. They can still shape the lives that follow.
Life Sharing Moments goes a step further. It explores the steady, patient work of building a life with another person. Not the grand gestures. The ordinary days, the hard seasons and the quiet decisions to stay.
The Red Thread of Fate
This painting draws on an old belief from Chinese and Japanese folklore. It is called the Red Thread of Fate.
In Chinese tradition, an old man of the moon ties an invisible red cord between people who are meant to meet. In Japan, the thread is often said to be tied to the little finger. The details change, but the promise is the same.
The cord may stretch. It may tangle. It never breaks.
I love this idea because it is gentle. It does not say life is easy. It says some people are joined, whatever the distance and whatever the detours.
How the Painting Was Made
Every layer in this painting has a purpose.
The white ground. I began with a very thick layer of white. Using a hard, thick brush, I made clear vertical strokes. The paint stands up from the paper. It gives the work weight from the start.
The light blue layer. Next, I used the same brush and the same vertical movement in light blue. The strokes sit over the white and add depth. Some white shows through, like light behind a curtain.
The two figures. Then came the figures, in thick light red. They are very abstract. The taller figure stands on the left. The smaller figure sits at the top right. I did not give them faces. They could be any two people. They could be you and someone you love.
The red splashes. A few splashes of red are scattered around the figures. They are the small, unplanned moments that make up a shared life.
The thread. The final layer is a line that twists and turns between the two figures. It began in dark blue. I then painted red over most of it, leaving some blue showing underneath. The two colours now travel together. The red is the thread of fate. The blue is the quiet, steady life beneath it.
What “No Regrets” Really Means
“No Regrets” is easy to say. It works well on a mug or a wall.
It is much harder to mean.
It does not say the road was smooth. It does not say every turn was welcome. It says something more honest.
I have looked at all of it. The difficulty and the beauty. The loss and the gain. The turns I did not choose.
Destiny Is Something You Choose Daily
It is tempting to think of destiny as something that happens to us. A force from outside.
I see it differently. Destiny also grows from within. It shows in what we do when the road turns. It shows in who we choose to turn with.
A shared life is built from small choices. To stay. To try again. To face a hard day together, not apart. To trust the road when you cannot see its end.
Each choice is a quiet act of faith. Not in some distant future, but in the person beside you.
That is why the two figures in this painting are never separate. The thread holds them together, through every twist and loop.
How to Look at This Painting
Here are a few ways to explore the work:
- Follow the line. Start at the taller figure and trace the thread with your eyes. Where does it loop? Where does it cross itself?
- Look for the blue. Find the places where the dark blue shows through the red. What might sit beneath your own thread?
- Notice the scale. One figure is tall, and one is small. Does that feel like protection, distance or something else?
- Study the strokes. The vertical lines are deliberate. They suggest rain, growth and steady times passing.
There is no right answer. I would love to know what you see.
A Question for You
Think about your own life. Not the one you planned, but the one that found you.
Who has walked beside you through the unexpected turns? Can you feel the quiet warmth of gratitude for the road that brought you here?
Share your story in the comments.
The Life Sharing Moments Series
Life Sharing Moments is the fifth series in my body of work that I have been working on for 2026. It follows Moments Like These, Oblivious and Untold, Between Two Points and Missing Puzzle Piece.
The series has five paintings:
- No Regrets, Destiny Knows Better (this post)
- Against All the Odds
- The Defender and the Holder
- The Light at the End
- The Harvest
The next post, Against All the Odds, is coming soon.
