{it}

Passion.  Life's "that's it" for each of us has ever the playful heart.  Peek-a-boo like, your inner mojo can be hidden.  Impatient & anxious, it rests behind cubby holes and inside cluttered closets.  It pokes out from under crumpled rock piles as you go along the mundane.  You know, the mind management otherwise known as your space here on Earth.  For those acutely aware of time & journey, unveiling tiny tidbits of their most masterful is like magic. Early on, these are the little ones who are lost in story.  The ones buried in blocks or mystified with eyes behind microscopes fervently flipping the pages of books for the simple sake of knowledge. They're the ones ones shooting ghost ball jump shots or making last second touchdown catches in living rooms. The kiddos cloaked in constant costume.  It's there for them.  And, they know it.  They feel it.  It's as if they can't live without it.  It. Their passion perfectly placed for soaring in the who God keenly created them to be. It pulses out of them. These are the magical ones. The special. The ones who innately know their it.  

I'd like to think many of us knew our magical at an early age.  God spoils us like that.  I blame the methodical mindset of maturity for the suffocation of passion.  Life's hustle simply flattens us.  Schedules and scores squelch out the joy in the God given great for many of us.  Lucky are the ones still cloaked in costume and mystified by the magnified of the lens.  

{Casey reading to Eli  his first published book.}

I was one of the lucky for awhile.  A stuffed animal owl and eagle were my wildlife rescues in my very own television show about endangered species.  It aired at least 3 times a week in my back yard.  I was the sequined bodice lead majorette in countless Macy's Thanksgiving Day parades. I performed in sold out stages across America as a Rockette.  I wrote television jingles and screenplays too.  With the two button duo press, I recorded and directed radio shows on my cassette recorder with my brother and the neighborhood kids. I wrote journals full of soap opera scripts.  I advertised markdown sales for TG&Y. I choreographed a multitude of dance routines to the sounds of the Judds, Madonna, Tiffany and Debbie Gibson.

 {A collection of the boys' writing journals.}

But then things like formal lessons of "You have to learn with the right hand to twirl the baton not the left" and "Don't you think you would like to play basketball better?" found their way into my heart.  My it changed. I slid into a world of the succumb.  Breathes became more shallow and life's color turned to sepia for a bit.  Confidence lessened and insecurities increased in this left handed little girl.

{Eli reading to Casey his fourth published book}

But, God's got a way of giving back to you what is rightfully yours.  I took a detour from my inner me. It's not that I didn't excel in my off road excursion. I did. It's just my heart had inner most happy elsewhere.  And, when that innermost sidled back into its comfy spot on the couch of me?  The pillow cushions possessed the warmth of its presence long ago as if it had never left.

I create.  That's my it.  It's like breathing to me.  I love expressing emotions.  I move. I write.  Rules like "you have to twirl with your right hand" run a pesky parallel to "you can't write a sentence without this grammatical rule in tact".  My it does not exist for red markings or measure ups.  

And, the more I reunite with the little girl ever present in her back yard studio/stage of dreams, the more of the best me I become.  For myself.  For my family.  For others.

{I began writing journals with them when they were 3 years old.}

My innate sense of creating is a strength. God wouldn't have given it to me if it wasn't.  The gift of writing is a joy that I can't help but share.   Only this time it's not scripts for back yard radio shows, for the latest sale on TG&Y's storefront window or for soap opera screenplays.  It's for my boys. I am using my it to teach them.  To teach them that words have a profound purpose on paper. With eyes as their staircase, words wind upward into corners of minds and down deep into souls.  They open up new worlds, mold hearts and make more of people in wonderful ways.  For better.  For happier.  For good.  

I write this post for confidence's sake.  I write it as a reminder too. We all have a passion.  It's inside each of us and naturally born.  Find it.  Don't forget it if you're like me and lost it for a time.  Don't hide it.  As parents, don't stifle it in your children.  Savor it in yourselves and your little ones growing.  Celebrate who they are with a resounding joy that banishes all preset rules and fancy mainstream ways of saying "you can't".  

Impatient & anxious, it rests behind cubby holes and inside cluttered closets.  It pokes out from under crumpled rock piles as you go along the mundane. 

Don't let it.

.mac :)