My Creative Story: Part 3 College

Read Why I Am Telling My Creative Story and see each part of the story here. I jump-start my ‘adult life’ by graduating high school a year early (credit given to all the books about unicorns I read in elementary school). I begin going to college at the tech school in town with a double major of interior design and social work. The thread I haven’t woven as much into this story is my constant volunteering, learning about other cultures around the world and observing the intense need for help by those that are struggling in our city.So I’m so torn and at the biggest crossroads: follow my passion for creativity or go all in and give my life to helping people. Still undecided, I spend a summer working one of the previously mentioned camps that is missions based, but it is the version I attended but for kids, so there needs to be SO much creativity in every activity to keep them occupied all day. I obviously teach crafts and bible study. Best days ever. We learn about Jackson Pollock and decoupaging and just have so much fun.I return home, transfer to the local liberal arts college where everyone is talking about world peace and equality for everyone and easily make my choice to choose social work. When I honestly look back, I don’t ever really think I was going to choose design. I just liked crafts, but couldn’t see myself hanging curtains for a living and at that time, there were no blogs or Pinterest to tell me there were more options than just helping rich people design rooms for their dogs. I always knew my heart was yearning for social work and the people I would encounter. So I chose Social Work and never looked back and, woah, I did a whole interview here about how social workers are the most creative thinkers on the planet. Again living a creative lifestyle, but not directly doing crafts.In college I was always ‘the crafty one’ but for the life of me I can’t figure out why. I don’t remember doing crafts in college. I think I forgot I was ‘crafty’. A lot of getting back to my creative roots came from other people seeing that gift in me and reminding me. I know I decorated my room really cute in college (still no pinterest), but I was a slob so it was kind of hard to see. I hand stamped all my invitations for my wedding (no pinterest). I wanted to do alllll the decorating for our wedding (sans pinterest still).  But, no single craft had caught my attention in a while. College was a wonderful and unique time for me and my creative story. I was doing all the fun things you do in college: taking naps, road trips, staying up late, watching all of Lost in a month, watching Friends on repeat, eating a lot of fast food, working 3 jobs at a time, volunteering, going to class, skipping class. So my days were a little full you see...Then I decided to bring my sewing machine with me to college and had my dad build me a special desk that we designed together to have a spot for work and for crafting. Slowly paper and fabric started filling up my room again. Photos were popping up everywhere celebrating all the fun we were having in college as Facebook has been created and we are harnessing its power of reminding us to take photos and share them. Lots of pink frames and cork boards covered with photos are lining my walls. I was always altering clothes I had bought at thrift stores and repurposing items.But life in college had no consistent schedule or ‘creative goals’ for me. So I just made stuff that I needed, like a gift or new curtains or pillows. Again though, I was living a creative lifestyle by infusing these gifts and skills into my everyday activities. I was leading Young Life and constantly coming up with fun stories, games, theme nights and outfits for events. I was creating plans to help families out of poverty. I was thinking of ways to get a good grade but do less work. All seemingly unrelated but all needing creative thinking to succeed. Very soon though, the realness of the adult world is about to catch up to me very fast. Read Why I Am Telling My Creative Story and see each part of the story here.