Creating

One of the things that I've had to come to grips with is my necessity to create. I have -since the dawn of my birth I believe- been a little...odd. A bit different. Just a tad to the right of the normal spectrum. It's taken me a long time to get that this is completely and utterly more than okay. That it's perfect, actually.

I'm part of the spectrum that colors the world, without my particular brand of odd the world would be depleted of an essential color. I'm not trying to boast, I feel that way about everyone else, too.

A huge part of me -something that colors my world- is the need to Make. When I was a girl I loved to draw, sketch, and paint. I fancied myself an artist. I let my turmoltuous teenaged feelings tumble out into pages in poetry and journaling. I wanted to be a writer. When I was a bit older I got a sewing machine and made halloween costumes and small things like pillows and curtains. I still dabbled in paint but grew self concious of the effort.

It occoured to me, I have no skill. I have no professional training in any of these ventures and my self confidence depleted further. So, I packed away the machines, the papers and the paints. I stowed away a part of myself that I felt too inept to develop. To scared to release. I made excuses; I have no time, I'm a mother now, I'm tired, I don't need to. The joy and excitement I felt in creating seeped away as I lied to myself.

Every once in a while I'd pull something out, when the need to create overpowered me and took control. A project I wanted to work on or grab a notebook and start randomly typing thoughts or ideas. One thing I've leared is to go with it, your heart won't stand to be denied forever, your soul won't sit back and let itself whittle away. These urges had me trying my hand at a myriad of creative outlets; music, sewing, knitting, singing, photography, writing. Anything and everything and still the list goes on. Over the past two years I've going back and forth from a whirlwind of creation to packing it up again disappointed as I let the excuses ebb in, telling myself, as I gave away supplies or deleted stories, that "It's for the best." though it didn't feel like that at the time. It still doesn't feel that way. Actually, it feels quite bad.

One of my problems, that I heartily recognize -though have no clue to master- is my personal disappointment that I'm not good enough. Its easy for me to fall back on those inner demons that tell me I'll "never be as good/smart/interesting/pretty/important as...". With the abuse I suffered as a child, it's hard for me to see what I make is of worth. Even if its only worthy to me. My world is was once colorless, a dull blank canvas where there was no hope of ever seeing a drop of color except for the bleak greys and forboding blacks of the shadows that haunted me.

Creating helped me to keep my spark during those troubled times but my heart and head have a hard time allowing me to show others since it had been beat into me that I had no worth, nothing about me was meritus, special or important. How could anything be that way that I made? I secreted away my creations to avoid ridicule, while unknowling keeping that slice of me alive.

Though something inside me now shouts to share these little things I create with the world. I want to bring the joy I feel to others but I have a hard time accepting criticism and have only recently tried sharing some of my writing with people online. I've started gifting my quilts to wee babies I know. I'm looking at joining a writing group, with real people in my area. I want to bring hapiness and interest to other people, put a drop of color to their canvas.

I suppose the point to all of this is that, even though, I'm not -nor probably will ever be- very, very good at one thing, I'm working on being true to myself and those parts of me that were never fully accepted by others. The parts that make me a little zany, a tad morbid, a bit uncouth, quite sarcastic and a whole lot open and in love with the spectrum of the world and my place in it.