Margaret Felice

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My one word for 2016: Create

January 4, 2016 · Filed Under: Uncategorized, Words · Tagged With: music, OneWord365, singing, writing

Looking back over the archives, I realized it has been three years since I last wrote about choosing one intentional word to guide my year. The great team at OneWord365 encouraged me to do it in the first place; in 2013 I chose the word fuel. 

Looking back, the best word for 2014 and 2015 would have been “survive”. Just before Christmas 2013 I threw up my dinner and never really got well again. My Crohn’s raged for a full year, I felt better with a little prednisone that fall, and on New Year’s Eve 2015 I threw up, quite poetically, moments before midnight. Less than a month later I was going under the knife, as my wonderful team of surgeons and docs took me apart and put me together again. 

And I survived. And those were those years.

*****

Since surgery I have been in remission. The recovery from multiple surgeries was long and arduous, but every day I felt a little better and I got back into the habit of saying yes to everything, of taking on every challenge and living out my personal motto: better exhausted in the evening than bored all day. 

This level of manic involvement is not new to me. I was obsessed with productivity for most of my adulthood. It was often at the level of compulsion: who would I be if not accomplishing something? Do I exist if I am not producing?

Now I know that I do indeed exist if I am not producing. I exist when I am suffering, when I am sick, when I am weak and tired. Not only do I exist: I am loved and worthy. Knowing this has freed me.

My involvements now, though just as intense and time-consuming as before I was ill, are no longer compulsed. I dive in to new commitments because I know it is the fullest expression of who I am. I juggle multiple projects because my heart and brain are full of ideas and I have the bandwidth right now to bring them to life.

I am not who I am because I create. I create because I am who I am. 

Perhaps it is cheating to pick a word for this year that my heart already longs to fulfill. All I want right now, in my health, knowing how precarious that health is, is to create. This is different from producing: I’ve been able to produce for a long time. A robot can produce. But creativity involves breaking off a piece of yourself, putting it into something new, and trusting that more of you will grow back in its place.

I thought about using “creativity” as my word, but it wasn’t strong enough. When I say “create” it’s not the verb I have in mind, but the imperative tense. That’s how I feel right now: commanded by my health, the universe, and my own soul to create for as long as I can.

CREATE

What one word will guide your year?

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4 Comments

Comments

  1. Alison says

    January 4, 2016 at 11:20 pm

    This is my word for 2016 as well! Thanks for writing the great blog post! It’s inspiring me to create more this year!

    Reply
    • Margaret Felice says

      January 5, 2016 at 5:49 am

      Wonderful! May be both be very creative this year!

      Reply
  2. Dan Pierson says

    January 6, 2016 at 10:00 am

    Margaret,

    Yes, I believe you have much to offer. The creator is calling you to participate in the ongoing creation of all that is so helpful to so many. Thank you and Happy New Year.

    Reply
    • Margaret Felice says

      January 6, 2016 at 10:02 am

      Thank you so much, Dan. Happy New Year to you as well!

      Reply

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