This is the first ink drawing I made as an adult artist. It was this drawing that set me on the path to my sabbatical from painting after my son's death. 
I was fooling around, and when I finished this piece, it said, clear as day, "maybe you don't have to paint."
I had painted for years for subsistence. It's how I put food on the table fir my children. 
"Maybe you don't have to," opened a way for me. I still think continuing to paint that year would probably have killed me. 
"Maybe you don't have to," led me, years later, back to painting, this time because I chose to. I wanted to. 
Art is meant to free, not to bind. 
I will forever only make art I want to make, with my full being.
Original drawing, 8 x 6 inches, ink on watercolor paper