Creative Questions 3 – To Be

I’ve decided to take calmkate @ Aroused up on her Creative Questions Challenge by answering each of her 6 current questions over the next few days.

CQ3: What do you want to be when you grow up?

I’m not sure when I grew up, but I’ve only ever wanted to be one thing: a writer. When I was really young, I wanted to be a journalist/reporter like Jessica Savitch. I idolized her and always thought of myself as traveling t0 far away places and writing or reporting about my adventures. When she died, my dream died with her, but it didn’t deter me from still wanting to be a writer. I’ve done some form of writing since I could pick up a pencil. I’ve written poetry since I was 12. I studied creative writing in college. And today, I write fiction and poetry. It is my passion, it’s why I get up every day, and it brings me great pleasure when others read my work and enjoy it. I am not published though and I doubt I ever will be. Just posting on my blog gives me enough pleasure.

Self-Discovery Sunday – Passion

for Self-Discovery Sunday – What are you passionate about?

I haven’t always had passion in life. In fact, I went through five very dark years of depression where passion had completely fizzled out in my life. During those five years, I quit doing everything that I once loved. I hid myself away in a darkened bedroom, rarely went out of my house, and attempted suicide more times than I care to admit. I blamed most of it on my husband during those years, but if truth were to be known, I was just as guilty. Sure, it was difficult living with a narcissist, but I was also the problem. I hated living in Oklahoma far away from my mountains of Virginia. I made no effort to meet new people. And I rarely left the house. I allowed myself to sink into that horrible depressive state. But when you are Bipolar, you don’t always have a choice as to when depression or mania will hit you. It just happens. Without notice and at the most inconvenient of moments. It was only with the help of a cocktail of drugs, a great therapist and Mindfulness training that I overcame my depression. I do still on occasion have a depressive moment, but nothing like before. I have my passionate life back again!

Here is my list of 5 things I am passionate about:

1. Meditation and Mindfulness – these are both essential to my life if I want to remain depression-free. I do a 20 min meditation each morning and I practice Mindfulness throughout the day. You should see me mindfully brush my teeth *laughs*
2. Writing – this is without a doubt my #1 passion, even though I am listing here it here as #2, for obvious reasons listed above *winks*. Writing fiction and poetry is in my blood. It is my reason for blogging, my reason for getting up each day, and for living. Without it, I am nothing, a soulless being.
3. Cultivating friendships – I don’t have many friends, but the few that I do have, I want to keep. So it is very important that I maintain and strengthen those friendships.
4. Reading – I am an avid reader. Nothing thrills me quite like a good mystery or science fiction story. I love getting lost in others’ lives.
5. Family – I haven’t always been close to my family, but I am working very hard these days to keep that connection.

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Self-Discovery Sunday is a weekly Journal Writing experience for those who’ve dealt with and are recovering from depression and/or addiction. I hope you will join me each Sunday over at Annette’s Place as we learn to discover who we truly are and how we wish to live our lives now, free of depression and addiction.

What Fuels My Soul

In response to Cristian Mihai’s Passion post

Cristian asked some very pertinent questions about Passion, that which drives us and makes us feel alive. I could have answered in the comments, but I wanted to explore this a bit, more than a quick response.

I am most passionate about the written word, whether as poetry, short fiction, novels, or non-fiction. I truly believe there is power in words: the power to move, encourage, or enslave, the power of freedom, revolution, self-realization — like in this poem by the Indian poet, Sanober Khan:

“Words
are powerful
forces of nature.

they are destruction.
they are nourishment.
they are flesh.
they are water.
they are flowers
and bone.

they burn. they cleanse
they erase. they etch.

they can either
leave you
feeling
homeless

or brimming
with home.”
― Sanober Khan

I enjoy reading poetry and prose that inspires me, that wrenches at my heart, and that puts me in the grip of Knowing — that silent moment when what someone else has written rings so true with you, that you are in complete awe. That is the way I write, or at the very least, I strive to write that way. And so I have made it my life’s goal to write poetry and short fiction, to give back to others the passion that fuels my soul.