I would say one of my main qualities, and honestly one of the main qualities of my family, is creativity. My dad, as much as he claims he has a science-oriented mind, dabbles in building model cars and ships. My mother is a great singer, and used to play guitar and take part in all sorts of creative activities before raising a family distracted her from that goal. My sister will be starting an internship for education in the fall, and is already hoping to organize a drama group and a Dungeons & Dragons club.
As for myself, I find that I’m falling out of my usual creative endeavours. I don’t have the time to take part in drama as of now. I used to sing, but I can’t do my usual coffee shop gigs anymore. What I do have time to do is write (of course, since it’s my job). In my free time, I write short stories and poetry, or do collaborative writing with friends. My sister also suckered me into playing Dungeons & Dragons, and though I wasn’t sure if I’d like it, so far it’s been incredibly fun.
The only issue I’ve found with having a creative mind is that it tends to result in a few difficulties that interfere with my life, and particularly, my sleep schedule.
Surely I’m not the only one who has heard a ‘bump in the night’ when settling into bed. It happens often, particularly when you sleep in a basement like I do. The water heater hums, pipes rattle, stairs creak. Most people are able to dismiss this with only a brief moment of worry. I unfortunately don’t have this luxury.
If I hear a noise, I stare out my bedroom door, fretting silently, as my brain provides a hundred different horrifying explanations for what caused the sound. Sure, I know that the most likely explanation was that the house is just shifting, but what if it was an axe murderer waiting to strike? Yes, we have an alarm system installed so no one could break in… no one corporeal, that is. Is it a ghost? It’s definitely a ghost.
A few nights ago, a friend of mine introduced us to a spooky game called Dread. In it, your characters are challenged to survive in a horror story, and when completing challenges, you must pull a block from a Jenga tower to see if your character succeeds… and survives. If the tower falls, your character perishes.
The story my friend put us through was a ghost story, involving a creepy pair of twins who would spook the characters by appearing in mirrors. One of my friends even had his character die when the ghost girl shattered the mirror and stabbed the man with pieces of glass. Even though my character survived the story, I couldn’t help but notice there are an alarming number of mirrors in my house.
And I do mean alarming. I counted 10 mirrors in my house as I was inching my way through the hallway towards my room. One of those mirrors is, in fact, built into the headrest of my bed, which caused me endless joy.
I am not ashamed to admit that I slept with a suitcase barricading my door shut and a Superman lamp lighting up my room so I could keep the ghosts at bay. I do realize I am an adult.
Though I guess I’m not the only one who can end up cursed with overthinking a simple noise. A friend of my parents was woken by a strange scratching noise, and in a panic, he threw his blanket over his head. The scratching noise only continued, and he peered out from under the covers. The scratching suddenly stopped. Confused, but still nervous, he burrowed deeper in the blankets, and the scratching continued. Every time he looked out, they stopped. It was quite a relief to discover that the scratching noise was actually just his eyelashes rubbing against the blanket!
Even when I’m not left on edge from viewing scary movies, or even when I realize I should probably not watch something scary since it will hinder my ability to sleep peacefully, I still don’t always spend my nights snoozing like a log.
I mentioned before that I like to write stories. Those who are creative individuals themselves know that inspiration can strike at any moment. I find often that I will wake up from a dream, excited by a potential idea. When that idea shows up, it can be very hard to calm myself down. Instead, I start stretching out the idea, building out complicated plotlines and character arcs. I often start planning out a dramatic final battle when I look at the clock and realize I’ve been up for two hours just thinking about a story I might never actually write.
It would be very convenient if I could just turn my creativity off once in a while. But I guess even gifts can be a curse, depending how you look at it.
