Gifted.

Everyone is gifted, but some people never open their package. ~Wolfgang Riebe

My 90-year-old mother told me that I attended creative writing classes after school when I was a young girl. I have no recollection of such classes, instructions, or assignments. I do know that writing has always come second nature to me. Whether a term paper for school, a thesis for graduate school, a short story, a poem, or a marketing piece, I was in my element if wordsmithing was involved.

I became an English major in college because I liked to read and I could write, and I had no interest in nursing. Where I came from, those were the two career options most young women pursued. I was an art minor in college with a concentration in photography. I penned two books of informational nonfiction during the ten years I was not drinking alcohol (between 1989 and 1999), was a columnist for a national trade magazine for two years, earned a Master of Fine Arts degree, and did all kinds of creative things. The minute I picked up a drink in 2000, I ceased to write another word, and the camera got buried behind some cardboard boxes in a closet under the stairs. Once I got sober, it took five years to remember that I was an artist and had God-given talents.

One fall, I got to spend a month in Arizona in this blue chair with the light streaming in, writing, and crafting another book. I don't know many of you who are listening and/or reading this column today are thinking my history doesn’t apply to you, but I will tell you one thing: I am not unique. You, too, have been given gifts, talents, and skills that the world needs. What are they? What's holding you back from following your heart's desire? Fear? Of what? Failure? That you're not good enough? Trust me when I tell you, you are brilliant. You are a beacon. How dare you not shine?

Check out: https://www.roamandgolightly.com/blog/we-are-all-creative