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!