By Amanda Ponzar

Have you ever heard the quote: “Tell me who you love, and I will tell you who you are?” There’s some truth to that, but it’s more WHAT you love to do that tells you who you are.

Side note: you are more than your job or even all the hats you wear (mother, wife, daughter, friend, sister, employee, volunteer, etc.).

I noticed this the other day when someone asked me what my hobbies were. HOBBIES?! I found myself saying “Well, I used to…[fill in the blank].”

I USED to be a singer, artist, jogger, poet, creative writer, volunteer, beauty queen, academic scholar, great reader, etc., etc. So what does that make me now? Hollow like those disappointing chocolate Easter bunnies with nothing inside?

Yes, I am a nonprofit director and communications professional, I love what I do, and I’m good at it. However, that's not everything. What I used to love to do is also who I am. Those gifts and talents and passions are not dead, they’re just buried because I’m busy. So, I dug out some old poems and artwork and began my own Renaissance –- started sketching again, even got out the watercolors & paint brushes.

And then yesterday, this Wordsworth poem I’d memorized in college came back to me:  “The world is too much with us, late and soon, getting and spending, we lay waste our powers. Little we see in nature that is ours. We have given our hearts away...”

Yes, family and work are important, but so are the gifts we’ve been given that bring us (and often others too) joy. Let's not get lost in the hustle and bustle and harried shuffle of everyday life, living that same Ground Hog day over and over and over again.

So, who are YOU? Remember what you love to do -– gardening, cooking, traveling, drawing, hiking, writing, sailing, fixing cars, scrapbooking, working with animals, advocating for a great cause, volunteering for your favorite charity –- and do more of it!

(Photos of my artwork, copyright Amanda Ponzar)