Creativity

I've been listening to this every morning as I get ready for classes and it has got me thinking about creativity.  I have never really thought of myself as a creative person, as a matter of fact I've pretty much always pictured myself as an epic failure at anything remotely creative. 

I play the piano and I play beautifully when it's just for myself, but I epically fail at it whenever anyone else listens (which totally makes it sound like I'm lying about the fact that I can play at all, but I really can, I just freeze up whenever anyone else is around.) But I enjoy playing for myself, and I will play for others when called upon. 

I have never been one for art.  First graders draw better than me.  I'm still learning to color in the lines.  My 4th grade teacher even sat down and gave me a "private lesson on how to color in the lines" once.  Yeah.  I'm that good.

I loved to sew clothes and cross stitch when I was younger.  I fancied myself a little pioneer.  I wasn't very good, but I enjoyed it.  I kind of want to start sewing up again.  I made a quilt this summer and I semi-recently bought some new patterns for clothes.

I love writing/storytelling but again, I'm not super good at it.  If I try to hand write anything, no one else can read it (handwriting was the one thing that was consistently on my report card through out elementary school that I needed to improve on, K-6th grade) and I have this nasty tendency to completely ignore/make-up my own spellings/words/grammar (thank goodness for computers/spell check).  And I don't really like other people reading my writing (that's the hardest part about this blog, I'm putting it out there for anyone to read and judge) because I don't like people correcting/editing/judging my work (and therefore me.  I'm super logical like that.  If anyone tells me I spelled a word wrong I think that means they hate me) but I'm getting better at it.  And I'm really bad at finishing my writing (I'm really good at starting my writing though!) But I enjoy writing lots of different things, stories, poems, thoughts, quotes, journal entries, and blog posts.

I love to cook and I also love to eat.  I'm still a slow cooker (wait, that's not what I meant to say) It takes me a long time to make a meal (I pretty much have to double preparation times on most meals) and I make a lot of mistakes but I really enjoy it anyway.  Eating has always rocked my socks.  I'm not really sure if eating is creative though...

I blog (no really?) which I suppose is somewhat creative, as is journaling. 

I'm not really creative in any other way though.  And I'm not great at the creative projects I do pursue.  But through listening to these thoughts on creativity I'm learning that it's not really about being the best or most creative at whatever creative pursuits you do.  It's about enjoying the process of creating and knowing that it was through your effort that something new was made, no matter the quality.  I'm learning to just enjoy creating no matter the quality of the end result.  As long as I'm enjoying it, nothing else matters.