Creative Process

I knew that leaving was the right thing to do. But I didn’t realize just how right it was till I made it to my childhood friend. It has been incredibly healing to see her again and to have the light of childhood come back to me. But even beyond that my creativity feels revived. 

I have always been the kind of person who needs a creative outlet daily. If I don’t have that it can quickly start to take a toll on my mental and emotion health. It’s not something everyone understands but my mom always has. I had gone through an amazing season of finding my faith and building my life around it. But in the midst of that process I lost my art, lost my creative spark. It felt like losing a limb or losing a loved one. 

I constantly tried to just move past it, to continue painting in spite of it, to just muscle my way through it. Every time I picked up a paint brush it would feel like I was lying, to myself and to the world. It is the most uncomfortable thing I have ever experienced. Because it was as if someone had cut out something integral of my chest, the part that helped me tick. 

Eventually I just gave up, said if I can’t tell the truth then I won’t speak at all. So I gave up painting for nearly two years. In that time I took up writing, a skill I had always wanted to be good at, I just needed something to say. And man did I ever have things to say. I took up writing because if I didn’t I was gonna drown. In the process of writing and honing my skill I’ve come to know and understand myself better. I’ve come back to the understanding that I do need a creative outlet. I don’t and can’t function well in my daily life without one. 

Even though I took up writing and it’s been a fruitful endeavour, I always wanted to go back to painting. It was my first love and I felt somewhat lost without it. I had to sit down and ask myself some hard questions. Why did it feel like lying, why was I so angry and is the anger misplaced. And do you know the conclusion I came to? I found that I had a great deal of grief to work through. I had so much of it that it was blocking my ability to paint, and the only way out is through. So it took quite some time to move past it and heal. 

Even after I came out the other end I was still a little lost. It had been so long since I could paint and not immediately become stressed, that when the uneasiness didn’t come I was left a little confused. I had to relearn my way around my visual expression of creativity. And its taken some time, but I’m okay with that. 

Because I got here to see my friend and somewhere along the way my zeal for painting came back. I found my way back to my inner child's love of painting. It has felt like the largest gift I could have received. Doesn’t mean I’ll stop writing, I’ve found value in learning to communicate with words and not just colours. I’ve found that I can balance two creative forms and I’m only better for it. 

I couldn’t tell you what finally brought back my love of painting, couldn’t tell you what put me back into sorts. However I can tell you that I’ll never stop being grateful for the healing I’ve come into. I knew I would have a great deal of fun on this trip, but I couldn’t be happier that I found some healing too.