…On Mondays, we love and rally.
Do what you loved as a child
What did you “want to be” when you grew up?
When I was four or five, I wanted to be an artist. By the time I was nine or ten, I wanted to be a singer (I actually have a set of pipes, if you can believe it).
The common thread in these aspirations was creativity. I was a SUPER creative child – always writing poems and short stories, collaging the front of my school notebooks, writing and singing songs. Creativity was fuel for my soul.
Fast forward two decades – and I’d totally lost touch with my creativity.
Instead of going to college for music theatre, which is what I was going to alllllll the way up until the time I needed to apply to schools, I majored in communication. I was afraid of being a starving artist. So I chose a more traditional route because I thought that’s what I was “supposed” to do.
I worked in public relations and marketing for ten years before starting From Molly With Love. During that decade-long career I said flat-out, “I’m not creative,” more times than I can count. Writing became a chore because I used so much of my brain space drafting white papers and technical reports. After work, I’d crack open a bottle of wine (or two) and decompress by watching Keeping Up With the Kardashians.
I wondered why I always felt so empty.
I’d totally forgotten that my soul REALLY need me to create stuff in order to be happy. I’d stopped listening to it. I was too busy doing what I was “supposed to be doing” with my life.
When I took a hiatus from work to get treatment for alcoholism, I re-discovered my creativity. Someone gave me an adult coloring book as a gift. And because I finally had time, I busted out the markers. That damn coloring book cracked something open in me. Before I knew it, I owned more of them than I can count. I started watching makeup artistry videos on YouTube on a daily basis, attempting to re-create challenging looks. I wrote short stories again. Eventually, that led to painting with water colors, hand lettering, and art and bullet journaling. I now own an embarrassing amount of art supplies.
And my soul is much, much happier. Creativity has become a critical part of my self care.
So what did you love to do as a child? What was your ambition when you were four or five? Did you lose it somewhere along the way?
