Creative type

I guess it’s no surprise that as you get older, and spend more time in your own company, you learn more about yourself. Part of this is undoubtedly becoming a parent; seeing myself through someone else’s, smaller eyes, makes you think a bit more, and you learn how little patience you have, and how much sleep is truly necessary to function. But recently I’ve noticed more how I really am a creative type. I guess it makes sense really; from childhood I loved painting, art, made my own cards for people’s birthdays. Wrote books of poems I tore up into tiny pieces upon finding them in later years, and wrote stories, always having a notebook- at least one – in use. As with most childhood, my imagination ran rife and I dragged my little brother into my make-believe games, and wrote scripts of plays for us and my cousins to perform to our parents.

Somewhere in the midst of life, of exams and school, getting married and moving, university, baby raising- whilst I have continued being creative I think part of me has forgotten that’s what I am. Part of me has thought that’s not important enough- I can spend free time doing it but it doesn’t really matter, and will only be a hobby. I went from wanting to be an author  to wanting to be an author / hairdresser / gymnastics coach [all at the same time, by the way!] because that would be more practical, realistic. Then I decided teaching would be a good idea, and then dropped that to be left with no real plan.

Amongst my friends at uni, some of whom are graduating this year, others next, I haven’t felt the same pressure to ‘know what I want to do’, or ‘have a plan’- partly because when I graduate Phoebe will be two and a half, not old enough for school yet, and I don’t want her to have to go to nursery full time so I can work- and I guess also because I’m married, and I’ve already been through a season in York where I was job-seeking and Josh was the wage-earner. The pressure for money is shared, not my sole responsibility to know how I’m going to earn money, especially with a child to look after.

But now I am starting to think a bit, and remember a bit, what it is that I seem to be hard wired to love, to be good at. I love creating. Yes, I also love reading, and studying, but reading books, fiction at least is more relaxation, enjoyment, and studying requires a different kind of motivation. But give me an evening, take my washing up and housework and uni work away- my mental list of things I want to do is full of creativeness. Making cards, making a holiday journal, glass painting, sewing, spinning words from emptiness. I don’t know exactly what that might look like for my future, whether I will earn money from selling on Folksy whilst Phoebe is at home, or whether I will write, or create in some other way, remains to be seen. God has a plan, He made me this way. I’m excited to see what His future for us holds. It’s nice to have that reminder. That I’m a creative soul, and that’s ok.

PS. I got two pieces in the Uni Creative Writing magazine, Route 57! [Zoe Powell]