One Foot in Front of the Other

There are moments in our lives that make us feel the most alive. For some, it's that feeling after a long run, when your body feels exhausted and exhilarated all in one gasping breath. For others, it may be a special someone that makes you feel alive, makes you feel at peace. For me, it has always been at night, when the air is cold and the sky is mostly clear, but still dusted with clouds. Nothing makes me feel more spiritually connected with myself, more overwhelmed, more inspired, than staring up into the dark abyss above and trying to make pictures by tracing the stars together.

We as people have a creative spirit, whether we identify it within ourselves or not. Way before us, people looked to the skies and saw images, saw constellations, made something out of hardly anything just by staring up in the sky. Gods were created, stories discovered, reasons crafted, existence was questioned. Today, some of us are creative in the literal and the typical sense, we create furniture, we paint pictures, we draw sketches. Even children, who have a tiny understanding of their world, can be handed a marker and a piece of paper and away they go, drawing pictures that we can't decipher. It is a part of who we are to create. Perhaps, that is God working through us, because certainly God was the father of creation, and is the most fantastic creator of them all.

How is it then, if it is so natural, that we can feel so entirely stifled by our own selves to create? What is it that we do to our selves that makes it so impossible for us to create something? I think about myself, as I struggle to write, as I struggle to get over the very fear of just attempting to start a new project. What have a done to myself to make myself so terrified of trying, of coming up with a story, or just sitting down and letting the short stories go, like they used to?

It's hard, living in a world that is so dominated by what we've created. Not all that is created is positive. We've created hate, we've created judgement, we've created disgust and societal norms. We've created the very things that constantly hold us back from ourselves. I certainly have. I see it happen to so many others as well, and it's an easy cycle to fall captive to. It's much easier to settle into negative actions and feelings than to enjoy the positive characteristics of ourselves and others, because living a life that is joyful in nature means that we have to trust, and trust is arguably the most difficult trait to have. Trust is supposed to be undaunted, but it can take so little to destroy it, even in an instant.

So here we are, having taken a few tiny steps. Continuing requires some level of trust, trust within myself that I care more about my own identity and truth than the unpredictable nature of others. It's okay to not always feel secure, but it's important to let those fears fuel you forward, not suffocate your self-worth. One foot in front of the other, we are doing this together.