You Are Free, an illustration I drew for Measure Magazine

My friend Daniele is doing something very cool this year. She's doing everything that scares her.

I love that idea: Taking wild, courageous leaps into territory we've never gone before--territory we assumed was blocked off with yellow tape and orange cones. I want to do more of that, too. It's why I made a couple of concrete resolutions, like learning how to sew and completing a book. Because if I don't do it now, I never will, and if I don't even start, I'll definitely never finish.

Rama said something to me last year that has echoed in my ears since. "Christine," he said, "you'd be really good if you were more brave."

He was talking about my artwork, but it's true of a lot of things. It is so much easier to show hints at brilliance -- short snippets of writing and half-done sketches -- than to finish a piece and let it stand on its own two feet. What if it's not as good as I hoped it would be? Worse, what if it's really awful? What if I discover that all this time that I've been carefully treading, I've been on the completely wrong path to begin with?

It's possible. Everything is.

Maybe I'll surprise myself. Maybe I'll end up creating something beautiful. Maybe those dreams tugging at my shirttails are trying to tell me something I need, and deserve, to hear. That I can do it. That I always could. I just had to try.