Opening myself up

Since leaving art college some twenty three years ago, I've not really continued to draw actively.
Yes, of course... I've doodled here and there but I didn't take myself seriously.

Through the years, I've always desired to get back into drawing or painting yet somehow that desire seemed to fade as the years went by.
I somehow felt ... I was missing something important and beautiful in my life.
I wasn't challenging myself to create on paper or canvas, to capture what was happening in my head.
Those images, stories and experiences I was living.

But of course, these were only happening in my head! and why should that mean that it is not real at all?
Of course it was as real as I know them to be.

Yet, something inside me had 'shut down' terribly!!! and I just could not bring myself to draw.
I could not let myself 'go', 'be open', 'set myself free' to create anymore.
My need to be 'perfect' and 'not to make any mistakes' was tearing me down.
Was I created to ' tear & shut myself down'?
The answer was 'NO'.
So clearly, something had to be done.
But.... how, what or why?

In 2008, I began very consciously and very slowly ... bringing myself back into the arts of creativity, drawing and painting.

The question of "Who am i?" (truly really honestly without all those masks I wear every moment) has been bringing me to a much fuller richer life of self discovery.
My next question of  "What then gives me life?" (all those pleasures and joys which life offers) has set me along this fun-fulfilling journey.

Here is one of my very first paintings:

"You have to create what excites you, what you're passionate about. As soon as you create with the idea of 'will everybody like this?', you dilute everything unique and special about what you do. If you make it with passion, someone else will connect to it with passion. And you only need one other person to love it enough - Sonia King