Finding a Voice

I've had The Artist's Way for six months.

I thought about buying a copy for years before that.

I kept thinking--I don't have time.  I can reawaken creativity without a book.  It's weird and mystic and not my thing.  It's New Age-y, and I'm not.

It's also really, really good and a little spiritual in a way that meshes with the faith that I am rewriting/discovering as a person different from the teenager in church every time the doors were open.  I finally started reading it yesterday.

That's not a journey I talk about much or will share here (this is a public space, after all, and seeing as I want my personal, private faith to remain just that, I won't share it here), but let me say this: believing in something as an adult, as a twenty-five-year old, married, master's degree-d, homeowner, dog-owner, job-seeking woman is different from believing in something as a shy teenager, not because the things you believe have changed (although some have), but because you have changed.  You need deeper, more thorough, more life-applicable answers, and that's okay. You learn to be an artist with the everyday, with your daily life, instead of imagining yourself as a writer in a cabin in the woods on a mountainside or holed up in a huge library day in and day out, because you've learned that you're not just one thing.  You're many, and that's just fine.  You're a writer-teacher-wife-daughter-sister who spoils her puppy rotten.  You're a sometimes-artist who doesn't create brilliant pieces but does create from the heart, and that's enough.

You are finding your voice.