When was the last time you wrote for yourself?

On Curiosity, Identity, and the Courage to Create

I’ve been sitting with a question that stopped me in my tracks.

Prefacing this piece by naming what a blessing it is to have friends with whom we can spitball the wild ride we call life with. Friends whose journeys and curiosities mirror our own; whose reflections and dreams remind us of what’s possible; whose energy leaves us feeling a little more energized, tapped in, hopeful.

Lauren is one of those friends for me. There’s something about her capacity to hold and play with complexity that feels deeply enriching. I’m sure the fact that her work centers on identity exploration and the capacity to flirt with liminality has something to do with it; but I also think she’s just a deeply curious person. And it’s become increasingly clear to me that curiosity is my utmost love language. My deepest connections, whether romantic or platonic, have been with those unafraid to explore the depths of their inner worlds, and in doing so, extend that same spirit of exploration to our relationship. People so committed to understanding themselves that they can’t help but cultivate a deeper understanding of me, too.

So, Lauren and I were having yet another (not-so-casual) one of those conversations on the intersections of our identities with bigger existential questions on the broader meaning of life.

And while sharing with her one of my favourite reminders from Marianne Williamson’s book, A Return to Love, she asked something so profoundly simple, that shook me to my core. She said, “when was the last time you wrote for yourself”?

For context, I was recalling a passage in A Return to Love where Marianne reminds us that sharing our God-given gifts should be viewed as a practice of love, not a means for monetization. In it, she writes something along the lines of - if you’re good at singing, just sing. Go to the park and sing. Go to hospitals and sing. Go the subway and sing. You don’t need a stage and bright lights to be a singer. The world is already full of places hungry for your song. So many of us hold tightly to our passions out of fear or anticipation for the right time, moment, opportunity. When really, the only right time to explore our passions further is…now.

Tying this back to Lauren’s identity exploration work, I admitted how much resistance I still feel around claiming my identity as a writer. Even though it’s something I’ve always loved. Something younger me always found solace in. Something that came naturally without effort. And still, I struggle to lean into. Still, I find myself hesitating before picking up a pen (or keyboard) and allowing myself to pour onto the page unedited. Why is it that other identities that bring me less joy, less fulfillment, less life feel easier to embrace?

How many of us think we’re stuck in a single identity when in truth, God has placed in us multitudes? We fold ourselves into the neatest box available, because it feels safer than expanding into the unknown. Yet life, in its fullness, rarely fits inside tidy containers.

The question Lauren asked me – when was the last time you wrote for yourself – landed like both an invitation and a mirror. It made me realize how often I write for a deadline, a grant, a proposal, a post, a reader, but not for the sheer joy of being with my own words. Writing, when I let it be free of expectation, feels like a homecoming. It feels like prayer. It feels like meeting myself at the altar of honesty.

And still, there’s the resistance. That tug of unworthiness. The quiet voice that asks, who the hell are you to call yourself a writer? The truth is, I don’t always know how to answer that. What I do know is that every time I surrender to the page, something in me exhales. Something loosens. Something remembers.

Maybe that’s the whole point. Not to claim an identity like a badge, but to keep returning to the practices that make us come alive. To choose curiosity over fear. To explore ourselves so fully that we cannot help but extend that same tenderness outward.

I’m trying to remind myself that writing for my is less about proving I am a writer, and more about giving myself permission to flirt with my many identities. The loud ones and the quiet ones. The one that I’ve claimed, and the ones that I’m still figuring out how to own.

And maybe that’s the gift hidden inside Lauren’s question. That our identities are not prisons, but doorways. That who we are is not fixed, but unfolding. That the act of creating, in whatever form it takes, is less about what the world will see, and more about what it awakens in us.

So here I am, writing. For no one and for everything. For the girl who once found solace in words. For the woman still fumbling toward wholeness. For the Creator who gave me this gift, waiting patiently for me to use it.