To all the Creative Kids

This post goes out to all my creative kids that were always described with phrases like "wild imagination", "easily distracted" and "day dreamer". I was a good student, always focused enough to be on the honor roll. I was also what some people would call a teacher's pet. I was in choir, yearbook, Relay for Life and a few academic honor societies. I would drift off in my own world in class occasionally or I would get a warning for not paying attention because I was reading my book. Other than that, I was that annoying goody two shoes and I was okay with it.

Creativity has always been part of my life. Through books, music, drawing, making jewelry, writing, and "designing" clothes. My design skills consisted of cutting up perfectly good clothes with the intent of making them look cooler, it not working and being destroyed. I was a 7-year-old with safety scissors and not Vera Wang.

I learned quickly that I wasn't going to be asked to Paris fashion week, become the next Georgia O'Keeffe, or have my own jewelry line. It didn't stop me from appreciating those things and enjoy drawing and crafting. I did stop cutting up my clothes, but that passion for cool clothes never left. I kept writing (obviously), kept listening to music, singing, reading, and daydreaming.

Eventually 2013 rolled around and my high school life was coming to an end. Like every other 17–18-year-old kid in America I was asked "so what do want to go to school for?". At first, I picked music, specifically music education, two weeks before classes began, I made a complete 180 and ended up in the Godbold School of Business. There were ups and downs, but I still found outlets for creativity. I remember Spring semester my sophomore year I had a rather... stern finance professor. He went around and asked everyone their major when he got to me. I was the lone marketing major who was only in the class because it was required. After I stated my major, he looked at me and said, "Marketing is where creative people go when they need to get a real job". This statement has stuck with me to this day. Looking back, I'm not sure if it was a compliment or if it was a wise crack from an old man that had spent the vast majority of his career fighting with the marketing department over budgets.

Fast forward to 2017 and that same creative kid has entered the job market and now actually needs a real job. One with insurance and a 401k and a livable wage. I took the first job I got offered that ticked all the boxes. It was a customer service position at a well know communications company. Slowly over the next couple of years my creativity just seemed to fade. I was in the corporate world and my mental capacity for creativity seemed to be reduced to going to paint wooden door signs with my friends and family. I couldn't finish any of the stories I had started in my spare time. The one I had worked tirelessly on I began to resent. I hated it, it was awful, and it reminded me of a time in my life that I longed to forget.

Then 2020 happened and everything fell apart for most people. However, while many people were enjoying forced vacations or freaking out about finding new jobs. I was working full time remote for the first time in my life. I didn't have a legitimate desk; I was going to graduate school through an accelerated program, and I was mentally barely staying afloat. I won't bore you with the details of the past few years, but recently I had a friend ask me about the story from undergraduate that hasn't seen the light of day in literal years. It made me wonder. What if I tried again? Not with that story, with something similar. Something that was just different enough that I didn't resent it and it didn't pull me back into that dark place where it originated from.

What if I took this platform that I had been trying to build all those years ago and I did something different with it. I wasn't 20 anymore, I knew more about myself, who I am and what my priorities are.

So here I am at the end of 2022 trying something new again. Thrilled that creativity is always there. Ever changing, growing, thriving, and allowing me to try again.

To all the creative kids that I mentioned at the beginning. Who group up to have similar journeys as me. You got this; your creativity is not gone. It's in you. Just take the time to enjoy it. Prioritize it. Start working that creative muscle again.

What's your creative outlet? Is it writing here? Do you play an instrument? Make Tiktok skits? Paint? Let me know! I want to get to know you. All the creative kids.