She didn’t thrive for long, however. Soon, the pressure to focus on intellectual pursuits would smother the burgeoning artist in my soul. I was accepted into the Cleveland School of the Arts, but at the behest of my mother, I ended up going to a school that had honors classes instead. I believed the voices around me that warned studying art would never pay off. This sacrifice was the great turning point in my life, leading in a direction that would catapult me out of poverty, but it would not be my true calling. I would remain on that path for a decade.

My intellect sharpened. I reimagined myself as a social justice warrior. When I got to Dartmouth, I studied political science. I hated every class, but I pressed on. I interned for a Cleveland congresswoman in Washington, DC. I met Barack Obama when he was a junior senator. I believed I was on the right path, even as I grew more unhappy with my pursuits.

Quietly, in the shadows, my creative self rang bells from the grave. She whispered to me constantly, “Why don’t you take a photography or drawing class?” I listened and became alive in those classes, yet I still didn’t think art was for me.

When I graduated from Dartmouth, I became an investigator, looking into misconduct allegations against members of the New York City Police Department. It was intense and draining, but I felt like my work made a difference in the world. I then took another misstep into the field of journalism, which also proved to be the wrong fit.

I kept trying to figure out what might be wrong with me. It didn’t help that I was also battling intense depression. The childhood trauma I had buried for so long finally came home to roost. I battled suicidal thoughts. Why don’t you just end it? I felt lost and alone in the world.

In that moment, I had a choice to make. Give in to the pain—which was loud, thunderous, overwhelming—or try to see beyond it. I began taking spiritual development classes, searching for a wisdom that could help me transcend the heaviness of my situation.

What I discovered was that I was on the wrong path. I had forgotten that typewriter. I had forgotten how freeing it was to live animated by creative fire. I knew then: I had to answer the call. I abruptly changed my whole life and became an artist, writing and acting in a one-woman show to tremendous results. I had never done anything onstage before, but I got a standing ovation almost every single night for three years.