Being a creator isn’t easy. Your inside thoughts and feelings are always on display to everything on the outside.

Like a computer, I copy and paste myself to the world. Every character or piece of art or story, that little bit of me breaks through to that exterior realm. But in that inside realm they are confined in the penitentiary of my brain.

Little fragments of me exist in everything I create. My feelings show through my art, my personality appear in my characters, and my thoughts present themselves in my stories. Even if I don’t show these pieces to other people, they are still there for the universe to see. They are there to show the outside exactly who I am.

Inside, I’m just me. I’m not unique or shy or academic or anything in particular. My mind is just a dirty fishbowl of thousands of traits swirling together in a cloudy mess. I can’t pinpoint those unique things about me. I can’t just reach in and scoop out these identifiable qualities without fishing out hundreds of others, clouding and confusing me. Inside, I don’t really know who I am.

Outside, I have aspects unique to myself. I’m creative and dedicated and optimistic. Everything I make establishes those most important features of me. All of those meaningful traits in my head grow bigger while the insignificant grow smaller. I can see clearly through the fog of my mind. Outside, I know who I am.

I write and draw and create and I discover surprises about myself I had not yet known.

What’s even stranger is the fact I can be shaped by these creations into something I was never before. I never knew I could be brave or confident in myself. My identity was found and molded by my work.

I already knew I was a creator, but I found I was more than that- I was careful, bright, daring, curious, conscientious.