I come from a big, artistic, eccentric family. I grew up around painters and instrumentalists, tarot card readers and poets. Creativity looked very specific to me. Creativity was reserved for those who could swipe paint onto canvases and awe their audiences. It was reserved for those who could pick up an instrument and play a soulful tune with ease. Creativity was a label you earned, never something you could claim yourself. Creativity looked like passion and excellence. I had none of this.

I didn’t fit these self-imposed labels, so I never thought I was a creative person. In fact, I defensively denied it every time someone would tell me I was, in fact, creative. I didn’t believe my writing to be a creative outlet or even an artistic one for that matter. I think my hostility towards being regarded as creative stemmed from a deep yearning of wishing I believed what everyone else believed about me. It was such a juxtaposition to believe the “creative” label was meant to be bestowed upon me, but yet being unable to accept it when it was being bestowed on me.

I held creativity to too high a standard. Creativity is the noun for the verb, create. And the word create means just that, to create. It has no judgement, no passion nor excellence attached to it. Once I started looking at creativity through this lens, everything shifted.

Creativity is bringing something from the mind into the physical. This is the essence of it, of life itself. Everyday that I choose to bring an idea from my mind onto paper is a day that I am creative. Every line of poetry, every singular idea, every word itself is a creation free of the morality of “good” and “bad” art, so long as I see it that way.

Being creative was never meant to have morality attached to it. I wish I accepted this sooner. Create something everyday and know that you embody God every time you do.