I Have A Shocking Confession…

I’m not childlike.

OK, maybe every now and again I manage to channel my inner-child and actually live out my life with some sort of carefree, curious spirit. But it is for just a moment. Most days I am so adult.

I don’t like to make messes.

I don’t like to make mistakes.

I don’t like to do things without a purpose…a purpose that is worth my time, effort and focus.

I don’t lose track of time while playing, experimenting, exploring.

I don’t follow creative urges if they are going to take my day off course.

And you want to know the strangest thing about it all? I want to do all of the above.

I sat down today to do some drawing. I had a journal, a pen, and all I could do was just stare at them. Nothing came to me. I was blocked. I sorted my kids bookshelves instead, my empty journal and pen sitting beside me, quietly waiting.

I think being an artist and being childlike go hand in hand. I think there is something powerful about tapping into that childlike curiosity. You have to be willing to let a lot go, a lot of the stuff we pride ourselves on as adults.  You have to be FREE. You have to be okay with being IMPERFECT. (Are these words sounding familiar?) And you have to be beautifully naive. Naive to all the adult tasks that call to us. Naive to reason. Naive to success.

I know this stuff. This is not new revelations I’m turning over here. So why is it so incredibly hard to live it? Is it even possible with my DNA? Can I really become more and more childlike? Can I somehow get back to the bits of me I have long since let go of?

This quote that I read somewhere keeps coming to mind:

We must create what we most need to find.

I have to find a way to be childlike. I’ve been reaching for it in so many venues of my life. Through writing, through designing, through reading, through conversations with God. But I’m ready to sink into it even more. I’m not sure how or what this will look like. I wish someone could say to me, “All you have to do is X, Y and Z.” Wouldn’t that be amazing?

It’s not going to happen.

Instead I must create a solution. I must spend 2010 getting my hands dirty, so as to create what it is I so need to find. I can only hope this journey will make interesting and inspiring blogging. I can only hope some of you will be searching for something similar in your life. Those of you are with me, feeling the tension of adult life while secretly pining for childlike living, let’s try and find another way. There has to be another way. God, please show us another way.