Creating not Becoming

I’ve always been creative, but I’ve never been able to nail it down to one passion. I love acting, singing, decorating, writing-the list goes on and on. I love to create.

For so many years I thought I had to choose. How could I be all of those things? It didn’t fit into what I had been subconsciously absorbing since I was a little girl: that I had to choose something to be known for. Not to mention, that being known by others was of utmost importance.

Creating became a source of great pain for me throughout college and years after. It felt too hard. There was too much pressure, I couldn’t choose what I wanted to be the creator of. I retreated into myself. I was able to skate by using only the creativity I needed to create lesson plans for my preschool class and nothing much more.

Still the nudge to create kept seeping into every area of my life and I couldn’t stop it. I auditioned for a show, got in, and spent the next two years creating as an actress. It was glorious. And then I got pregnant, slowed down, and that desire to create onstage took a back seat to a different form of creativity-writing. For the first time in my life I was content with the switch. I wasn’t afraid I would lose theatre, I knew that would be there when I needed it. I didn’t feel like I was choosing, I felt like I was just cycling creativity to match my phases of life. It was unexplainably freeing.

This morning I am organizing and redecorating the house, which is one of my favorite creative outlets. Under our guest room bed I have been storing my keyboard and guitar, untouched for a few years. As I pulled them out from the dust bunnies, I felt that suffocating need to put these instruments to good use. My mind flipped over to schedule mode and I began to strategize how to get practice time in every day, setting goals to lead worship in church as a seasoned pianist. And then I stopped myself. This was all wrong. These are creative outlets, to be used as I desire, on my own time, in their own cycle. I can put them up in the guest room to be more accessible, but they are about creating, not becoming something more.

You see, there’s nothing wrong with becoming something. Goals are wonderful things, and sometimes we have to push ourselves to reach our goals. But for a perfectionist like myself who sets goals for everything, the importance of creating with no need to become anything is so important.

I challenge you my friends, to create to your hearts content without asking that you always become. Take a pottery class for no reason, or paint a watercolor of your backyard, no strings attached. The pressure for everything we do to be moving us towards “success” is exhausting. Creating allows us to be without needing us to become.