My insides hum with energy when (especially overdue) inspiration happens. To quote my new favorite song, so eloquently written by Elbow, “everybody owns the great ideas, and it feels like there’s a big one, ’round the corner”.

That’s how I feel when the white space in my mind floods with color and texture. Like when my sleeping dreams invade my only quiet space, paying my half-rested self in sensory sunset shades of red and orange, and through textures like the uneven edges of craggy cliffs against raw fingertips or ocean waves passing over my bare hands and strong, paddling arms.

I’m relieved when the puzzle pieces suddenly float together as if drawn by some known yet unknown centripetal force at hand. Gifting me by taking a simple thought that’s been following me around, one that is a little mysterious, undefined, complex and likely misunderstood, and crafting it in such a way that it now might resonate with just one other person. It happened again just now (and I wanted to explain the how before the what. It seemed important for some reason).

In this very moment, I’m living a virtual repetitive dream where my own needs keep clashing with the equally powerful needs and emotions that are the Yang to my emotional Ying. It always happens in a frightful, predictable thunderstorm whenever we take flight, which is problematic since wanderlust is something center to who I am.

Never mind that this is just a demon I have to overcome — this post isn’t a purge of that specifically. But on this particular journey, early on in trying to find a solution and solace, I was unexpectedly Sensepired by those things that are alter egos. We all have them, agreed? I know I have several, and for me they’re like a collection of stereotypical, red-headed, black sheep, lost child, step-children. I am a little Wednesday Addams, a lot Addie Loggins, and I am still sadly a little Peter Pan. I am a little Gaz Membrane. I am also a little Violet Parr. And quite simply I’ve finally accepted that I’ve just always been a bit of Violet’s shy, people-pleasing, awkward wallflower which really ends up feeding the most dreaded reoccurring conflicts – and I only have me to blame. But in this challenged moment today, still conflicted, I looked up, behind the curtain of her dark, protective Violet locks, and realized with a blinding light bulb that just like Violet, I am also very powerful. That girl in the mirror? She is always in control of her own journey. Her own happiness. Her own identity.

We all have alter egos. They are part of our Sensepiration. Who are yours?