Creating things makes me come alive.

Love the things you love as best as you can love them in the time you have in their presence.

I try and keep busy with something, but I also give myself permission to be busy with something that is creative and rewarding, not just the errands to the dry cleaner.

Change is a constant. Anything you get attached to will one day be gone.

Improvise. Write your own damn story.

It's in the silence that I'm most able to hear the tiny voices that tell me I'm not good enough, smart enough, or cool enough. I try to hear them for what they are: my own creations. Sitting with them, letting them speak, hearing them out, and giving them back the silence that I'm now sitting in has shown me that, quite often, they shut up.

There are times it's the only thing I want and I wonder how I'll ever go back to the world of noise and distraction. Other times, silence allows me to hear what's really going on in my head. Part of the reason we're on our phones or watching television or reading magazines is to give our heads something else to listen to other than our own thoughts.