I love to write. I really, kinda, absolutely need it to breathe. It keeps my heart beating. It gives my mind a place to go when Life has handed me a bunch of random, heavy, awkward rocks for me to carry. Some of these rocks weren’t just handed over to me, they were chucked at me. And when they smacked me in the face, Life was like, “Oh, whoops. Wow, you’re really bleeding. That’s hilarious. Ooo. That looks broken. You okay? I don’t care. Here’s some more rocks. You can’t carry all these? Huh. Well, here’s more. Whew, that one’s a big ol’ rock!”
Sometimes I get so hung up on Life, and on getting what I’m writing right, that I forget WHY I write.
It’s to make the burden bearable.
When my mind wanders away to these other worlds, it’s not just escaping. Not at all. This is where I can study the rocks Life has given me. It’s noticing the shape, the weight, the type of rock, and cataloguing them. If the rock is ginormous, it’s okay. Here, in this place, my mind can break it into pieces. And then, one by one, piece by piece, I am able to heave the rocks from my shoulder and carefully place them on the ground beneath me.
When this is done, I am no longer carrying the them, but am using them to build something new: a pathway through mud, steps up a mountain, a boundary wall for my safety.
Creativity is essential to our growth and wellbeing. Creativity is the friend that lifts those rocks from our backs and helps us put them down, and changing them from a burden to something we can use to help protect, heal, and lift us.
As we do this, as we grow to understand our own hurt and burdens, we also help others understand their suffering. In using our rocks to build a refuge, it becomes a refuge for others to run to. It helps them set down their own rocks and create their own pathways forward. It gives them courage to build steps up their own mountain, and leave the past behind.
However the world shifts, creativity is never wasted. It will always be needed. Creativity gives a voice to the cries held silently in the heart, the things that it can’t quite speak. Yet, when it is experienced by others who carry the same silent cries, they can hear it clearly. ♥️
Where Rose Writes Very True Stories 