I Remember What This Feels Like
Riding the waves of creativity + storytelling about the storytelling.
The other night, as I walked through my office to grab something, I suddenly felt compelled to make a scrapbook layout.
Compelled is a strong word—its definition is "to force or oblige someone to do something." So yes, I was essentially forcing myself, since I was the only one in the room besides my dog Betty.
It's a feeling I've known throughout my life: a magnetic "I must do this right now" kind of urgency.
The materials were waiting for me. A full-page flower photo sat on my work table. A partial piece of pattern paper from a recent release. Some random test stamping I'd done with the word "today" repeated over and over.
I had to make a layout to capture that feeling before leaving my office.
I didn't care what it would look like—I just wanted to ride that wave of creative compulsion for as long as possible. And I wasn't going to overthink it.
"Let it be easy," I whispered to myself.
Everything I needed was right there: the photo, pattern paper, and that little piece of stamped paper. I wrote "I remember what this feels like" on it to mark the moment. I added a date stamp and ran it through my sewing machine.
What I Was Remembering
In that moment, I remembered two things:
The satisfaction of immediate action. How incredible it feels to be creatively compelled and act on it right away—no hesitation, no delay.
The joy of following story feelings. Sometimes that means printing a photo simply because I love it, knowing I'll eventually create something with it. Sometimes it means grabbing my phone to capture a story (voice or text) before the moment passes. Sometimes it means gathering four die cuts from a recent release and giving them their own tray so I'll remember to use them together.
The Journey Back
I used to feel this magnetic "must make" feeling constantly when I started scrapbooking twenty years ago. It was a new creative phase where I simply had to let it all out—intense, magical, full of discovery. I was exactly where I was supposed to be.
I've journeyed through many creative phases since then: from compelled to repelled and everywhere between. Sometimes it's been magnetic. Other times I've had to put one foot in front of the other to show up—to my table, my stories, our community, myself.
Reflecting on that magnetic feeling from the other night, I realize I've been overthinking. A lot.
We so easily stop ourselves from letting our most authentic creative selves out. It's never perfect enough—the idea, execution, timing, outcome. We are never perfect enough. We worry about what others will think, or we get stuck replaying someone telling us our insides or outsides weren't enough.
And then we feel the pull back to ourselves.
More, Please
This year I've felt creatively compelled more than any other time in recent memory—with mixed media, painting experiments, and now storytelling. To feel that pull toward a scrapbook layout again was such a gift.
More, please!
After running the layout through my sewing machine, I jumped on here to cement the memory. Then I printed this story on vellum and added it on top of my photo.
Storytelling about the storytelling.
