... I'm less artsy, more crafty

For quite some time, I've considered myself very creative and artsy. However, truth be told, I have a hard time with it. I truly do enjoy painting, creating, making something beautiful from something ordinary. The enjoyment of the tasks was what led me to the conclusion that I was "artsy". But as any of you who know me are aware, I'm just a touch neurotic. I need things to be just so. Everything has a place, and I despise clutter. How then can these two brains inhabit the same person? Not without struggle, I assure you. When I paint something, or have an idea for an art project, I can never seem to get it "just so". I don't know that I'd say I'm a perfectionist (though Jason might), but I have a really hard time getting the project "right". And for awhile, I started to think perhaps this struggle meant I just wasn't good at being creative. But during a recent joking discussion of some of my neurotic tendencies, a friend said to me "I bet you aren't very creative or artsy, are you?" (I know it sounds as if she was being snarky. Trust me, she was not. Just making an observation.) My first initial response was, "Actually I really am!" Our converstion then took the direction of comparing how unusual it was to find someone who was very artistic and also very OCD-ish.
It was a short conversation, one mostly in passing; a small part of a long day together. But it stuck with me. I kept turning over her statement for a few days and it finally occurred to me that she was right. Not that I wasn't creative, but that it is so very unusual for one to be overly right-brained (more artistically leaning) and left-brained (pragmatic, precise, exacting) at the same time. Honestly, it made me feel a lot better! I finally understood why I felt like I wasn't "good" at being creative. As much as I enjoy it, my brain isn't naturally geared that direction. I'm certainly more left-brained than right-brained,so it finally made sense to me.
I can clean and organize and put order to any room in no time. But ask me to design something to go in that room and you may to wait awhile for the finished product.