It's about that time in the summer when everything is filled with a hot recklessness; everything feels more urgent, at least to me. Simultaneously, lethargy is in the air and the things I most want to do include the kind of creative summer idleness usually reserved for children. (It's a shame to me that sidewalk chalk and laying on the floor first thing in the morning aren't considered nearly as socially acceptable at this age as they used to be...)
One of the biggest balancing acts I have tried to discern lately is how to grow up without losing my imagination. I know that sounds very peter-pan-syndrome to some of you but it genuinely terrifies me that gaining too much perspective on the realities of grown up existence will somehow poison the creative spark I've felt is one of the few small treasures no one can take away from me. From the time I could hold a pencil, I have been writing down the things I imagine. Ask anyone whose been forced to listen to my dreams (always fun, right?) and they will tell you that while in day to day life I can be practical, left to my own devices my subconscious mind over-flows with concepts, characters, and dreams I've always felt I had to share with the world. While the last few years have seen me attempt to garner more responsibility and take more control of my actions, that also means perhaps giving up some of the whimsy and idleness required for genuine creativity to flourish. 
I worry sometimes (big surprise) late at night that as I try to balance more and more things (as we are expected to do as the years go by), attempt to make my own money and finish school, I am losing sight of who I really am. All my life I've thought I'd NEVER stop writing, and in the last ten years I genuinely thought I'd never stop acting either. Now I only write for school it seems, which usually consists of defending my own writing, or writing about other people's writing, or reading what other people write about my writing, none of which are particularly fun. Meanwhile I try in spare moments to recapture any small semblance of unlimited imagination I used to possess as a child; I listen to music and see others who have fearlessly followed their dreams, read about women accomplishing more than they ever could before, and talk to friends who share the same artistic frustrations. Am I living my dream right now? No. But I'm living A dream right now, an incredibly wonderful life, a crazy beautiful life I'm blessed to have.
Working and finishing school are just means to the eventual ends, they do not define me or the person I am working to become. And the fact that these creative yearnings haven't disappeared from my field of vision, the fact that they haunt me in my sleep, whisper to me late at night they will never leave as long as I remember them, gives me hope that one day they will manifest into something amazing which I can be genuinely proud of.
