It’s been a hot minute.

A while ago, I felt my creativity slipping away. It felt like sand in my hands and no matter how hard I gripped and scooped more sand into my hands, the minuscule sized grains just kept flowing, through my helpless and frustrated fingers, back into the ocean. So, I gave up. I stopped full emergency brake and just shut everything down.

Mind you, I was also working full time with an hour-long commute. I had a small child. My husband traveled an average of 5 days a week. I was running my photo business with all the pressures of social media. All while managing a household. My plates were all precariously spinning. I knew I was balancing on the edge of a knife and then pandemic hit and my therapist said “shut it all down”. Stop the spinning plates.

So I did. I took it down to the brass tacks of job, kid, husband, and house. Even then, it was a lot.

But deep down I also had gotten lost. I felt like why share my words and my art when it seemed like I was shouting into the void. I was lost in wanting the dopamine of likes and numbers and follows. Like those were the only proof that what I was doing was good and worthy. It morphed into proof that I WAS WORTHY. And that’s just awful.

Here I am years later, in an entirely new life, and I’ve been feeling the quiet nudges of inspiration. She has been speaking in my ear while I am going about my day. The thirst has been increasing with the feeling it can only be quenched with action. With doing the work. With laying words down into sentences and no longer creating for the feedback but instead creating for the release. The feeling of getting it out from inside my heart and soul and changing it into a full fledged piece outside of me, walking around in the world.

It only could happen with a lot of inner work. See, those years ago when I was lost I was at a realization I didn’t know who I was anymore. I had molded myself so fully into the environments I was in to fit their needs and wants of me that my true self was shoved into a tiny box and locked away because it didn’t seem useful anymore. There were flickers here and there of my true self at times. But as soon as it would flare, someone or something would remind me it was “too much” for the space I was standing in, so I’d shut it back down again.

I’ve spent some time unpacking that inner box I shoved into the corner. It meant looking at things I didn’t like along with the things I do love. It meant no longer presenting sides of me molded for the space I was standing in and instead, presenting exactly who I am all the time. Embracing the ideology of “If I’m too much, go find less”. It’s such a relief to no longer keep trying to hold people close to me who don’t really want all of me and instead let them float away and find the souls remaining to be worthy of me and my awesome.

Today when the creative whisper inside me said “Go listen to THAT playlist. Ya know, the one you created, full of songs that make you feel deeply. The one you’ve been avoiding for a long time because each song typically evokes a thought or an idea and forces you to introspect”, I listened. It’s not a pleasant playlist sometimes. Some songs bring really dark and deep emotions to the surface. Some force me to think of what it’s saying and apply that to my life. But no matter what, the songs almost always make me lift up the rock and see what’s underneath, pleasant or not.

Now I am typing away and sharing finally because the lyrics “Well, I've been afraid of changin' 'Cause I've built my life around you” rattled my cage into action. A song most of us have heard a million times and yet that line stood out like a spotlight to me. The reminder that the idea of ascribing to a life lived for others feels awful and unworthy. I’m so much more than that. It provoked me into action to share how I’ve been trying to live and to finally get my words out of me.

Embracing the ideology I listed before, if this all feels like too much for you, then go find less.

And for those of you remaining to see what else I have to offer, I see you. And I appreciate you.

“At the center of your being you have the answer; you know who you are and you know what you want” - Lao Tzu