A Creative Life Part 1

What does it look like to live a creative life? This is a question I’ve been wrestling with the past few days. I’ve felt somewhat stuck recently. You know the saying, “When it rains, it pours”? That’s been the picture of my life recently, and between everything I’m working through, I’ve managed to find myself at an unfortunate stopping point. And I don’t want to stay here. So, in working through a lot of stuff, I’ve discovered a dearth of creativity in my life. Which is strange, coming from a writer and musician who adores cooking and really wishes she could draw more than a stick figure. But I think it’s a deeper issue than that.

I’m not talking about a creative life in the vein of what you normally might picture – artist, musician, writer, painter, etc. I’m looking for a whole-life creative life. Sometimes I have a tendency to cling so tightly to order and the way things have “always been done,” to my routine and safety nets that I forget that life, in its most crystalline form, is unexpected. It’s not meant to be a rigid set of routines and dogmatic assumptions. It’s being open to God whispering in my ear and saying, “I have something new.”

A creative life takes all of those routines and comfort zones and tosses them out. That’s not to say that a creative life is one of complete chaos. There’s something really beautiful in having your routines and order of doing things. There’s a certain level of joy and anticipation knowing that on Sunday mornings, I’m going to sit at my coffee shop with my tea and write. But a creative life comes from knowing that at any moment, that could change. If I turn down breakfast with a friend on a Sunday morning because I’m sticking so tightly to what I know, that would suck the life out of, well, life. So I enjoy the moment and I skip my routine, because really, there is nothing better than breakfast with friends.

The uncreative life says, “This is what I’ve done.” The creative life says, “This is what I will do, or what I could do.” That creative life opens the doors for possibilities and for change. It opens you up to an entirely new set of, “What ifs?” It allows you to be more present in your life, more available to the people in your life, and more aware of the beauty that surrounds every moment – if only you look for it.

A creative life also allows you to look for other answers and ways around problems. I hate my white apartment walls. They are painfully boring, and I want to do something fresh and exciting! But for the past four months, I’ve just looked at plain white walls and lived in the disappointment that our landlord said no paint. (We even offered to have someone paint it professionally!) But as I’m setting out to look for ways of living a more creative life, I came across the most fun ideas online. I could hang a huge piece of fabric across one wall. I could use wall decals (a fantastic idea I’m taking from some great friends of ours out here). At very least, I can stop cursing the white walls and appreciate their simplicity. Where else in my life can I do the same thing?

I hope that my life is one of creativity and fluidity and moving within the moment. I hope that I never become so absorbed in my own life that I miss you. I want to take risks and really live. I want to love the people in my life more fully and be more present for them. Feed them crazier food in a brightly colored dining room. I want to dream bigger.

I want the creative life.

For those of you out there already brilliantly doing just this – I would love to hear your thoughts and what your life looks like… I want to learn from you.