Opening the treasure chest

I decided a long time ago I wasn't creative.

This was despite possessing considerable skills in several creative disciplines. But seemed a lot easier to forswear creativity than to figure out where it fitted in my life.

I'm starting to believe that part of my decision was to tie up loose ends.

My various creative talents were like loose ends. Loose ends that made me feel like I was letting myself down. Loose ends that asked, “What's the point of having talent if you don't know what to do with it?”.

In order to get rid of these niggling, disconcerting loose ends I stuck them into in a box.

When I didn't get into Performing Arts Academy? I chucked acting into the box. When I withdrew from my Architecture degree? I shoved design skills into the box too. And so I went through my late teens and early adulthood, tossing creative talents and skills into a box never to be opened again.

By my mid-twenties I had labelled the box “I'm Not a Creative Person* ”. (The disclaimer read: “despite the fact that I have considerable skills in several creative disciplines”. In very, very small print, mind you.)

I realise now that I mostly put things in the box because I didn't know what else to do with them.

I never really examined the criteria that made a talent or skill box-worthy. I believed that if the stuff in the box was really worth pursuing it wouldn't have ended up in the box.

I figured that if one of my talents didn't deserve to go in the box that someone else would have stopped me from putting it in there. (Like “Hey! You're a great actor! We want you at the Academy”). Or that the non-box-deserving talent would have come up with its own escape plan. It would have compelled me to paint great pictures, or write a novel... And since that never happened, I figured everything in the box was meant to stay there..

After a while, I didn't really want to look in the box. Or even think about it.

Because what if something was in there by mistake? I'd feel really, really bad about having put it into the box. I'd kick myself over lost opportunity. (Plus, I'd also have to deal with that loose end again. And I hate(d) loose ends!)

This year I'm opening the box!

There are lots of little bits and pieces of bright, sparkling things in there, but the common theme is creativity. The abilities to draw, sculpt, act, direct, sing, write, improvise and design are all in there, along with other “loose ends”.

Basically, the whole box is stuffed full of my creativity!

I still don't know what to do with these loose ends. But I know in my heart that they'll make my life a lot richer if they're not stuck in the damn box.