When I was little I was an artist. Then, I suddenly wasn’t. I’ve been thinking lately about how that’s definitely not OK, and how I need for that not to happen to my son.
When I was in elementary school, I felt and acted as an artist. I joined school plays, skipped excitedly to art class, kept an incredibly secretly journal, took guitar and painting lessons outside of school, was allowed to join the choir (to my surprise), loved and wrote poetry…..really, I could go on and on.
It’s funny that we often don’t remember the exact time that changes happen, even when they are quite significant ones. I don’t recall what changed my mind or encouraged me to stop with the art, but I remember being older and feeling that no, I wasn't an artist. When I reached high school, I took only the mandatory art class freshman year and that was that.
What happened? What changed within me that made me feel I was no longer worthy of expressing myself in front of others and in front of myself?
I said previou…