{liberation}

i had a revelation recently.

all my life i believed i wanted to be a writer.
i grew up believing books were my passion.
and, in order to fulfill my destiny,
i would one day have to be a published author.

so it confused me somewhat,
knowing what i wanted to be,
to find i was still searching.

after all,
if my soul and passion lies in the written word,
why am i not madly scribbling away 24/7?
why am i not spending every waking moment finding excuses and reasons to feast on words?
why am i still looking for myself beyond the page?

for a long time i thought i was procrastinating through fear.
fear of rejection, not being good enough, blah blah blah
(all very real stuff i know, but no need to dwell on right here)
and although there is some truth in that too;
ultimately,
i realise now,
i was stalling because my creative journey needed to begin elsewhere.

so, although i haven't completely discarded my original dream,
i am seeing it in a new context and perspective:
for that, i need to rewind 30-odd years,
because it all begins with my mother...

just as a caveat,
i know she loved me and was the best mother she knew how to be.
in fact she was a wonderful mother in many, many ways.
but,
all my life she has also been incredibly critical of me.
thin on praise,
with a lot of constructive critiscism on offer,
she is forever telling me what (and how) i can do better ~
showing me if at all possible!
(for example, she ended up illustrating most of my school projects,
which i still remember used to make me feel so proud.)
i believed she did this because she wanted the best for me.

and i still do.

but i can also see now,
how unwittingly the message she also sent me was:
you are just not good enough.

so how does this relate to writing?
well, english is my mother's second language.
(she's chinese)
and so i found an escape in books and writing ~
it was a place she didn't have the authority to come and tell me how to do it better.

as such it became who i wanted to be ~
by default.
because it was the only place i could be {me}
no judgements.
no questions asked.
no let-me-show-you-how-you-can-do-it-better.
in a book,
between the pages of my journal,
i could run free and wild in abandonment.

yet i never did feel completely liberated.
there was still something missing.

sadly it's taken the disntegration of my relationship with my mother to see this.
it's taken my not needing her approval,
not searching for her praise,
to do what i've always wanted to do.

this week i picked up a brush, some paints,
and made a glorious mess.
i had a ball,
and i can't get enough of it.

who would have thought,
the one thing i always deferred to my mother,
is the one thing which brings me so much joy.

and so, it's taken 8 years of gentle trust from a man who loves {me}
for me to start believing in what he sees.
and,
as i approach my 37th year in life,
i'm finally shedding some old skin,
and stepping out into my (new) dream.

what dreams are unfolding to you?