I’ve got a little more than a year left in Belgium, and I’m constantly looking back on my time here and looking forward to what might lie ahead.

I’ve written about my day-to-day life and our travel and experiences in Europe, but sometimes I think what will stand out in my mind when I revisit my expat years is the way I nurtured my creativity. Being plucked from my busy, busy, busy American life and dropped into a new country without a job, a friend, or a single item on my calendar was unnerving and yet liberating.

I often felt lost in every sense of the word during my first year here, but the up side of all that down time is that it removed every excuse I ever had for not expressing my creativity, for not stretching my skills, for not giving myself permission to try and possibly fail at something new.

When I started my blog, I did so with the idea that going public with my personal writing would force me to spend some time at the keyboard every day, to take an idea and fully explore it, to take rough writing and finish it, and to soldier on with my work whether I felt inspired or bored. In that respect, this blog has been a success. It may not be widely read or well known. but it’s fully my work and my online portfolio. I've written about 500 pages. The process of posting four to five times a week has taken my writing to a new level. I don’t think it’s ever been better, and I look forward to taking what I’ve learned back into the work place next year.

While honing my writing skills was my intention when I started this blog, I gained so much more than I ever expected; I’ve made friends, developed relationships, and learned from others’ experiences. It’s been the ultimate reality show with the most amazing cast of characters.

While here, I’ve also taken baby steps into the world of art and paper crafts and thoroughly enjoyed learning to stamp, watercolor, and make cards and scrapbook pages. With one year left of my “sabbatical from American life,” I’m more determined than ever to advance those fledgling skills and take some chances. I want to take a class in book making and one on painting techniques. I may even sign on for a class in making mosaics.

Suddenly time seems short. I both look forward to and fear going back to the U.S., wondering what shape my life will take when I’m once again planted in the land of the fast and the stressed. I try to focus on the positive, on the opportunities that await us, but part of me is also braced for what will seem like an assault on our low key European life style. In theory, we are going “home,” but home doesn’t exist anymore as a familiar, comforting place. Who knows what life will really be like--where we’ll live, how we’ll balance work and family time, and if we’ll be able to travel?

All I know is that I have one year left—and places to visit and things to do before I’m back in the rat race. Tomorrow this non-artist is going to boldly register for those art classes. It’s something I’d never find time for in the U.S., which is exactly why I need to do it now.  May 20, 2007