Identity

After a three or four year hiatus from blogging, I am back. As a working mother of two, I rarely have a chance to create art. Sure, I have done a few creative things, but most of the time, after a full-time work week, followed by a few quality hours spent with rambunctious toddlers and a fair share of house work, I generally want nothing more than a good book or some kind of mindless entertainment.

So in those scraps of time left, I have been surfing along on the superficial froth of life, communicating in quips and photos on facebook. I dropped blogging wondering who on earth would want to read this. But by staying on the surface, I have stopped processing the world around me.

The catalyst igniting this decision is, for lack of a more dignified term, an identity crisis. The faith I thought I knew since my youth has been undergoing some serious knocks. Restless is definitely how my experience of sabbath has been in this stage. I am so grateful for the people around me who have given me the space and encouragement I need as I try to get to the bottom of my doubts, while stepping back from the traditional obligations of our modern culture in terms of Christianity.

My claims to being an artist and writer have become compartmentalized into marketing copy and ad designs, but hardly anything personal. Painting series ideas have come to mind and then seeped away without making it to the page. My goal to someday write a novel–a better novel than my 17-year-old doorstop of a story–has been replaced by a compulsive ability to read anything I can get the kind community librarians to find on the shelves and put on hold for me.

So here’s to rediscovering some kind of depth and identity again in this somewhat public realm.