I never saw myself as much of a creative person. I saw myself as someone who understood people, solved problems, and survived difficult things. Creativity belonged to other people. I always compared myself to the most talented people in that field, and I never seemed to be one of them. I also deal with perfectionism. If I can’t do it perfectly, then I just don’t do it. Perfectionism and criticism became a cage of my own making. I’ve written terrible poems, experimented with fiber arts and drawing, played violin, learned bits of guitar, mandolin, and piano, and spent years singing despite never believing I was particularly good at any of it. That was reserved for those truly gifted and talented. But grief did something I never expected. Not because grief is inspiring. Most days it isn’t. But grief has a way of dissolving the stories we tell ourselves about who we are and who we aren’t.
I hit my forties and I seemed to be shedding those layers of insecurity I had built up over the years. I suddenly wanted to do the things anyway. Not just wanted but needed to do them. I tried crochet years before and quickly decided I wasn’t good at it. Looking back, the problem wasn’t crochet. It was my belief that anything worth doing should come naturally. So, at forty years old, there I was again, determined to learn crochet. My grandma had sent a crochet hook set with my mom to give to me. For some reason that was the moment it clicked. I was going to learn crochet this time. It was in my control. I was going to embrace the process, embrace the mistakes, embrace the imperfectionism, embrace it all. And that’s exactly what I did. I started crocheting blankets, gloves, scarves, all of it. And they weren’t horrible. Well, not all of them. My first pair of gloves wasn’t exactly a matching set. Are there other people who do wondrous things with yarn that I could never do? Absolutely. But mine was one of a kind too. Quite literally, with the gloves. The style, the stitch, the colors, the size, the feel… that was all me. I did okay with crochet. And for once, okay was exactly what I needed.
Then my grandma began going in and out of the hospital. She was ninety-four years old, so we all knew it could be any time. I was so grateful she lived a long life and didn’t experience a lot of pain or illness. Though it still didn’t make the grief any easier. So for months, I was in the car a lot traveling back and forth the two hours to go see my grandma and the two hours back home. I went and saw her at the care center she was in, as well as when she was in the hospital. During her stays, I witnessed what I felt were several instances of neglect, unethical behavior, and a general lack of care and consideration. Those issues made me feel like I had to be there all the time or they would never take proper care of her. I was exhausted, angry, disappointed, and above all determined. This is a woman who had never met a stranger, who cared for people in the last moments of their lives, and would have helped anyone in any way she possibly could. She deserved better.
Two days before my grandma passed, my uncle, her son, was diagnosed with Stage lll lung cancer. So immediately after my grandma passed, that became the focus. We got him the care he needed. We advocated, shopped, arranged chemo, radiation, scans, appointments. Everything. His family became his care team, cheering section, support system, and coordinators. All of it. We didn’t even get a chance to grieve her loss. Then came four months of battling doctors who said he would not get better, he would die quickly, and that mental health was not a priority. This was said to me when my uncle was in a catatonic state, mind you. This lit a fire inside me. I was enraged. I had spent years working in mental health, substance use, advocacy, and crisis response. I knew the systems were struggling. But that was the moment I realized just how much worse things had become. No one is coming. Well, the world may be broken, but I was going to do everything in my power to help my Uncle in whatever ways I could. For four months I traveled back and forth, over and over. I stayed with him in the hospital, stayed with friends who so graciously let me crash and vent. I wrote down everything, challenged anything that did not make sense and escalated it when needed. We brought him his favorite foods, the softest blankets, the coziest pillows. We tried to do everything possible to make an impossible situation a little more bearable. Then he said he wanted to go on hospice at home. For him, staying in the hospital was no way to live. We completely understood. It was jolting to do a complete about-face and focus only on comfort. It felt like we had fought for care for so long. He fought so hard. We fought so hard for him. For four months we were consumed by it all. Then his heart stopped. We were with him, fighting until the last second. It was over. Two people who were such soft spots in this harsh world were gone.
About two weeks before he passed I began writing a story. I don’t know why. I honestly just needed to. I had only written a couple chapters but was realizing how therapeutic it was and how it was just pouring out of me. But I was also so exhausted from it all. Then my uncle passed. I gave myself a second to decompress but then it was as if I had to write. I felt this strong pull. Like I was meant to be doing this the whole time. And suddenly it didn’t matter. Write before you’re ready, I kept hearing. You’ll never get better unless you keep writing, I kept thinking. And so I did. I’m still learning the craft but I’m trying to embrace the process. I’m embracing what has been in my soul this entire time. For forty-two years I was busy collecting information. I was experiencing, observing, analyzing, comparing, listening, feeling. I was doing it all, just not expressing it or turning it into anything. My uncle drew, whittled wood, and created every kind of art imaginable. My mom writes, grows gardens that stop people in their tracks, and hand-stitches beauty into the world through her quilts. Creativity takes many forms. I honestly think that I am becoming the person I was always meant to be. I am a writer.