A seed was previously planted within me from the day I was born. I was always meant to be a writer, to water my seed, and to watch it grow.
First, it began to grow as merely a hobby. It was something I did to release frustrations--whatever frustrations a pre-teen could have. It served as a hobby much like all the other hobbies a young girl has—sports, having sleepovers with friends talking about their crushes or making bracelets out of beads and the cheapest twine you could find.
Fast forward a few years, it turned into its own sort of entity. It was as if my journal was the only place that could handle all of my dreams, fears, secrets and memories. My seed had changed, and it had grown into something much bigger and stronger within me. It had grown into a passion—my passion, that I held very close to my heart, my mind and my whole being in general.
Now that I knew it was my passion, it was free and willing to grow even further.
It was to be toyed with, to be improved, to be pondered, to be shared, to be critiqued, to be everyone else's, but to be mostly mine.
Until it wasn't just mine anymore.
Wanting to turn your passion, once declared a passion, into something more is inevitable and something I just could not ignore. I wanted to make a career out of it, to surround every branch of my life around it.
But what happens when your passion becomes too much? What happens when your passion becomes all work, deadlines and for anyone and everyone else but yourself?
If you are anything like me, you deflate. Your passion becomes work and you dread doing it. You become creatively exhausted and you put forth an effort that seems terrible to you, yet seems like just enough to everyone else, so it becomes "decent" work.
To you, that is not and should never be enough.
As a writer, it was not like writing like when you knew it was just a hobby, before you consciously declared it a passion.
So what do you do when a passion becomes work?
You whip out that journal from your pre-teen years and write like you did back then, before it became work. You light that familiar smelling three-wick candle and take a bath (this time with a glass of wine because you are and adult now).
And, just like that…
You've found your inner passion and drive again.
