How Learning to Build Websites Changed My Life

I never thought of myself as a creative. My friends were creatives. They could paint, draw, and design the interior of their homes like professionals. I was the friend who couldn’t draw a straight line, rarely decorated, and drooled over spreadsheets. I was too literal to be creative, in my own opinion.

It’s funny how wrong we can be about ourselves.

The entire time I thought I wasn’t creative, I was blogging to keep friends and family updated. I wrote poetry and short stories. I learned to cross-stitch. I made clay figurines with my children. Many weekends, I painted watercolors with my toddlers.

Years later, I look back and see that it’s not that I wasn’t creative. I was stifled, depressed, and overwhelmed. My environment and bad choices didn’t leave room for creativity. Everything was survival, denial, and chaos. Alcohol became the crutch that I used to function and quiet the demons.