From the outside looking in, my path has majorly ebbed and flowed over the past ten years. I pursued music for 22 years, and *willingly* stepped away from it after I got married. I lovingly joke that I’ve lived ten lives since then, and if you were to plot my road of expertise on a map, you’d agree.
If I’m honest, I don’t think about it often. I feel lucky to have had so many passions in the past decade. And when the time comes to step away and try something new, I do. I’m a creative, an artist of life if you will. There’s magic and creativity in all these scattered areas of time, so why would I stay stagnant when I’m called to move? (And to be clear, I only move when I’m called.) While the packaging may look different, the foundation has always been the same: to love people. To see them, and I mean, really see them. It’s my greatest honor, and a privilege I’ve been able to experience in so many different forms.
I’ve been fortunate in not needing an Elevator Pitch outside of one or two people since my divorce became known (which speaks loudly to the incredibly community I’m surrounded by). But last week, one of those called into question my seemingly jagged path of passions. That I was seeking to fill a hole with every shift of a career path. That she was afraid that’s what I’m doing here in my marriage. And after the shock of the entire, hour-long conversation faded, after the shame of all the accusations slipped off my skin, I felt sadness. Not for me, but for her.
Life is a canvas. This giant, outstretched canvas, yearning for color and shapes and do-overs and discoveries. We’ve been taught for so long to paint in some sort of linear fashion with check marks and graph lines, plotting the perfect itinerary of our days. And I’m not knocking only experiencing one line of life, I have so much respect for it. How beautiful to find your singular purpose and to pursue it with your entire being. But so what if mine colors outside of the lines? The gratitude I feel when I look at my canvas, when I look at the people I’ve experienced because of it, is overwhelming. The different walks of life. The different shades of blue. The techniques and mediums I would have never even known about had I stayed in just one corner.
My canvas is a messy mix of color, darkness and light, and I understand it might not make sense to everyone.
But that’s the beauty of art, isn’t it?
We each get to interpret it in our own way. What moves me may not move you, and that’s okay. We’re given unique tools and talents to join together in this massive portrait of humanity. That’s why it works.
So let me paint how I want to, and I’ll watch you paint how you desire. I won’t judge the paths you take, I won’t call out the marks that left the road you had drawn so intricately for yourself. Because there is beauty in those too.
Purpose in them.
And you never know just who is waiting to meet you there.
👏👏👏