Recently, I came to the realization that I think with the right side of my brain.  OK, well, that’s not entirely true.  I always knew I had an artsy side and was more emotional and compulsive than the average, female, hot mess.  But, it was not until my  early 50’s that I admitted to myself and acknowledged that yes, I am a right sided thinker.

It’s not that there is anything odd or unusual about a person who ignores the left side of their brain.  It’s just that by acknowledging that you are indeed a creative person, you subconsciously end up putting pressure on yourself.

What am I, an artist?  A Writer?  An actress or filmmaker? A musician?

Let’s go back a bit…..  By the time I hit my early 50’s, my boys were (for the most part) grown and on their own.  I found myself with lots of time on my hands and wondering where my place in the world now existed.  Up to this point, I had devoted my life to raising a family.  I was, as they say, someone who wore many hats.  As one by one my son’s left our nest, each hat would fall from my head and land on the floor at my feet.  When the day came that my youngest son moved out, I found myself standing in the middle of an empty house wearing no hat at all.  It was just me and a head full of salon colored hair to cover up the grey’s that started popping out when my boy’s started hitting their teenage years.

Oh, don’t get me wrong, being an empty-nester is wonderful! You can sleep in until noon if you’d like and eat pizza every night for dinner rather than the wholesome meals you once cooked each night for a growing family.   Suddenly, every night around 5:30 is cocktail hour.  You are no longer the chauffeur, chef, maid, nurse, personal shopper, or tutor.  Your very hectic and chaotic lifestyle transforms into a peaceful paradise.  Yet, the silence is deafening.

So, as I suddenly found free time on my hands, and a mound of used up hats at my feet, I decided to devote my days to my hubs and myself.  But, where would I start?

I had always loved writing and had always had a pipe dream to one day write a book.  With the encouragement from my dear friend Bonnie, I dusted off my laptop computer and indeed, started to write.  I became a member of the WordPress family and created Being Margaret a lifestyle blog.  I started writing about every day ordinary topics.  I discovered that it came very easy to me.  It was as if I was having a dialogue with friends and recording it into words.  My writing seemed to be well received.   My mom was my biggest fan and supporter.  She looked forward to my weekly blog posts and would call me when a new piece was published.  We’d laugh together, or cry together over the words I had put on the paper.  We marveled together over my newly discovered gift of creativity. She encouraged me often to write a book but I had work to do first.  I had to create a brand for myself and make a place for myself in some corner of the internet.

When you create a personal space online in this age of computers and WiFi, as I did with my blog, you slowly become very good at technology.  You eventually learn to navigate your way through the inter-web highway like a Indy Race Car Driver.  You find yourself discovering Websites and Apps that fascinate you and speak to your interests in life.  Because I was on my computer daily,  writing and developing my WordPress site(s), it was inevitable and just a matter of time before I would stumble across social media sites from every genré.

And, I stumbled hard.  Instagram.  It was a whole new world to me.  Yes, it was for photo’s of family’s, vacations and friends, but it was much more than that to me.  I discovered a plethora of communites of creative individuals ~ writers, artists, musicians.  These communities spoke to me.  I was fascinated by the gifts these fab people were blessed with and how they utilized them.  I visited daily and I slowly started feeling like a part of the art community.  My Instagram feed shifted from personal friends and family to online acquaintances who had my similar interests.

I was mostly drawn to the journal community.  These people were gifted writers and artists that could take a bible verse, a famous poetic quote or their own words and make them the centerpiece of a gorgeous piece of art to be documented in what they called, their daily journals.  I invested time learning all about this art form.  I studied their methods and became increasingly fascinated with this kind of daily creativity.  Before I knew it, I was purchasing paint brushes, paints and journals and creating my own method.

After months and months of involvement in the journal community, I realized that I had a new hat!  It was an artist’s cap.  I never knew I could paint.  I didn’t know I could draw or create.  At the age of 50 something, I had suddenly discovered a deeply buried gift.  A gift that I had been blessed with at birth but had never tapped into or knew existed.  It was as if the right side of my brain woke up the day that all of my other hats had fallen off my head.

Embracing my love of art and utilizing my gift of creativity opened up an entire new world to me.  My ability and methods developed over time and I’ve slowly made a name for myself.  I eventually created a website, JournalCreations, and started a small business.  It’s my passion now.  It’s my job now ~ a job I look forward to waking up to do every single day.

These days, my boys are out of the nest.  My job raising them, up until this point, is done.  Of course, that job will never be completely finished.  I’ll always keep a few of my ‘Mom’ hats stowed away on a shelf in my closet.  I’ll take them down from time to time and use them when needed.  But for now, I proudly wear my artist cap.  My new hat!  My direction was made clear to me the day I tried that hat on and finally acknowledged that I was indeed, a right sided thinker.  Imagine that.  I’m an artist and was not aware of it until my mid 50’s.  Isn’t life wonderful!

It’s early Tuesday morning and I’m sitting at my mother-in-laws bedside at the local community hospital.  It seems as though this is the hundredth time I’ve found myself in this situation since moving her and my father-in-law back to Chicago because of failing health.  My Father-in-law, or Poppi as he was endearingly referred to by all, has since passed away.   He left behind his wife of over 65 years with a void in her heart as wide as the universe.  Their love was deep and strong and centered around their faith.  It was a strong union.  Among the strongest I’ve ever witnessed.

My hubs and I drove to the hospital in separate cars because, well, life is busy and our hectic schedules would pull us in different directions after our visit.  For us, even in the midst of emergency and tragedy, life doesn’t slow down. But, for my sweet mother-in-law, June, life had come to a screeching halt.  Looking down at her in the narrow, uncomfortable looking hospital bed, I saw the shell of the woman that she once was.  She lay there frail; shallowly breathing.  I grabbed her hand and whispered to her that we were there.  She struggled to slowly open her eyes.  She fought to say something to us but her mouth and throat were too dry and her voice was whisper soft.   We leaned in closer and were finally able to hear that she wanted to know what happened.

There’s something very humbling about visiting the elderly in the hospital.  Especially when they are at the end of their life.  If they’re able to communicate still, they tend to treat you to the stories of their lives.  And, through those stories you realize that the things that have made the biggest impact on their lives and the treasures that they’ve carried with them to the end have very little to do materialism.

They remember experiences and people.  They remember driving across the country in their car to visit a married daughter and her family.  They remember growing up in simpler times, before technology.  Beach days and sunsets.  They remember overcoming hardships and being thankful for what they had rather than wishing they had more.  All of their stories have a common theme.  The topic always centers on people, love, experiences and faith.

I thought about all of this as I sat next to this wonderful woman who had, so far, lived through 9 decades and had seen so many changes in her lifetime.  Both June and Poppi had treated me to hundreds of stories in the years since I had joined their family through marriage.  Stories that painted a picture of who they were and what was important to them. Stories that I would forever treasure and that I had heard so often that I could retell them in perfect detail, myself.

When I first came to know this sweet couple, my first thoughts were, “what a striking couple.”  They seemed to have the best of everything.  My mother-in-law was always impeccably dressed in coordinating outfits, would never leave the house without perfectly styled hair (and her lipstick on) and lived in a beautifully decorated, large home that most people would love to live in.  My father-in-law was handsome, jovial and at his happiest when on the golf course or tennis courts.  He loved good food, travel and the nicer things in life.   He was one of the most generous men I have ever met.  He was unique and outspoken and everyone loved him.

It did not take long after my marriage to Clark to get to know his parents deeply.  Likewise, it didn’t take long for me to realize that the fancy material things that they were blessed to be surrounded by were not what mattered most to them in life.  It was their love of God, family and friendships.  They showed me this preference of theirs through their actions time and time again.  I’ve always considered that lesson a gift and one I want to pass on to my children.  Love and people matter most in life.

Back in her hospital room, June and I sat in silence, as we had so many times before, and memories of her life swirled through my thoughts.  As I sat there, somewhere in the background was the loud whirring sound of some kind of machine she was hooked up to.  Her legs were wrapped in special socks to keep her circulation pumping as she lay there.  I could hear different doctors being paged over the intercom system in the hallway.  There was the faint smell of Lysol and ammonia and some kind of disinfectant in the air.

Even as all of this commotion went on around us, it felt oddly serene and quiet sitting there holding her hand.  I looked down at my now sleeping Mom.   She was laying there naked faced, no lipstick, her thinning hair completely flattened and messy, and wrapped in a flimsy, faded hospital gown.  And, I thought she had never looked more beautiful in her entire life.  Her life had gone from fancy to humble in the period of a few years. Because she had never put too much weight or value into the material goods of life,  she seemed at peace to me.  She knew she had a family that thought the world of her.  She had her faith.  She knew that one day she would be reunited with her husband again.

I can never thank this sweet couple enough for the deep lessons they’ve taught me in life through their actions.   When I’m at the end of my life, I pray that I will have made some kind of an impact on someone else’s life, too.  I hope that someone will look down at me in my hospital bed with gratitude for lessons I’ve passed on to them.  Lessons of faith and love.