With all the recent news accounts of school and internet bullying and the recent suicides of so many gay youth, I feel I must address this issue on my blog without further delay. "Well, what does this have to do with creativity?" you may ask. My answer is– just everything. Every single sensitive soul out there, gay or straight or in-between, needs their creativity to help save them from the carelessness of a war-torn and insensitive world. When life is all about the money and where you fall on the socio-economic scale; how you look, what you wear or how you are perceived by the majority of people in any particular group, creativity can help preserve your individual sense of self. Your creative efforts can keep your mind in the moment, your feet on the ground, and prevent you from getting lost in the woods (or the words) of the self-righteous.
I say that creativity, in my case writing, saved my life. Of course, a dramatic individual by nature, most people think that I'm simply overstating the case. But I'm telling the stone cold sober truth. Writing saved my life. I was a misfit from my youth. I did not fit in with the kids in my schools. I was not popular. I did not have dates. I was slender and strong and practically breastless. After being bullied and scorned by my peers, I drank heavily, had difficulties at home, could not finish college and, feeling like an utter failure, attempted suicide – more than once. Lucky for me, I was bad at that, too. I finally joined the military, where further problems awaited me. I was investigated twice for alleged lesbianism and raped in my dorm.
When I got out, I joined the police department in a big city. And although policing suited my tough outer skin, it broke my heart repeatedly. I soon realized that I could not stay sober, sane, or kind and remain a cop. So I quit and became a writer. I told myself that I would live in a broom closet if need be so that I could write. I didn't have to, but I was willing. I had friends who helped me, and I spent every dime from my police retirement fund to write my first novel.
It was not a great novel. But it was great for me. It was cathartic--in it I could punish those who had punished me. I got my revenge with characters on the page. Nobody got hurt. I lived in a wonderful fantasy world where women like me were strong and powerful–sexy, beautiful, and smart. And I proved to myself that not only could I write, I could start a long project and finish it all by myself. Talk about empowering!
That year of writing "Silverwaters" healed me. It healed something so deep in me that I would never allow myself to be beaten down again. Not that I wouldn't fall down. I would. But I knew how to get back up. And I knew that a large part of healing was in the sharing of one's work. I wanted others who needed it to hear my "gospel;" that all of us are created as beautiful works of art with a special purpose in this world. We need to stay alive, stand up, and be counted. It is important to know that "God don't make mistakes." And neither I nor you, nor anyone reading this is in anyway a mistake.
Want to prove that theory? Sit down with a pen and paper right now. Begin this sentence, " I am not a mistake. When I was 15 years old, I thought maybe I was, but...." Now write until you have nothing else to say. Take a morning or afternoon or evening and do this. Then read it to yourself. Share it with a friend. Share it on the Trevor Project or the "It Gets Better" site. This is how we save our lives and the lives of others. We tell our stories and we tell the truth and we tell it as creatively as we can: in stories, songs, poems, essays, youtube, visual art, and in the fact of our everyday lives. I learned long ago that the best revenge is a life well lived. Begin today. And help someone else along the way.
