Arc of Life

My office seems a little strange to me these days, with all the emotional changes I’m going through.  But this is just another stage of my development, the arc of my life.

I still find myself vacillating from joy to sadness.  I am realizing that this process I’m currently in must be something like being an “empty nester.”  I am emerging from the genesis of my characters to their exodus.  They are leaving my care and moving into the wide open unknown of the real world.  I have brought them into being, cared for them, and nurtured them.  I had to give a soul to them, so as to give their voices resonance.  Having done my part as their parent, I gladly set my children free to fly on their own.   

I can’t pretend that I am eager to see my creative offspring leave me.   Not because they aren’t ready, but because I don’t really want to see them go.

 

The temptation when creating characters, like raising children, is to mold them the way you want them to be molded.  You try at first to live vicariously through them, but the characters fight back.  Eventually, you see that they have their own voice, with their own personalities and destinies.  In the days, months and years of chronicling these characters, I found myself frustrated and sometimes wished that they would grow up enough to be somewhat self-sufficient.  Of course, now that they are, I wish that I could freeze them in time.      

 

At first, I tried forcing them into my mold, and then I tried charming them, and eventually tried guiding them, until at last I allowed them to guide me.  I watched as their natural personalities came out.  Once they were formed, I could not change them any more than I could change a real person.   I can merely watch and write as the arc of their life unfolds, refining them.

 

They were created to live in the open, to live freely with no chains.  We too, have a Creator.  The only way for us to live a life of freedom is to acknowledge that we are His wondrous creation and allow our Creator to guide the arc of our lives.  How are you allowing HIM to refine YOU?