I come from a broken home, not unlike so many others. As a child, my family and I constantly moved from state to state. There was a brief time in my life where cities, schools, and friends came and went, but one thing seemed to stay consistent: art.

As the years and places flew by I became extremely introverted, and my battle with anxiety and depression began. I was very, very shy, and I tried with all my might to avoid people at all costs, even if that meant eating lunch locked in a stall in the bathroom. I found it very hard to relate to anyone about anything, which resulted in always being seen as the odd girl who never talked and wasn't fun. However, there was always some small part of the day where I got to let loose and let my weird shine.

I never got into sports at school; it was always art class right from the beginning. I wouldn’t consider myself to be "athletically inclined," so when all my classmates were running off to gym class, I was off to art class. I remember experiencing that little spark of passion in my heart. The first time walking into a room that radiated the scent of tempura paints, paper, and freshly sharpened pencils. That spark has remained.

To this day, I strongly feel that without the arts in school, I might not have ever gotten to experience that spark that grows beautifully creative coping mechanisms. I found art when I couldn’t find myself. It is and always will be my small escape from reality.

It’s no big secret that arts and humanities programs are slowly getting smaller, or making their way out of schools all over the country completely, due to budget cuts. “Students who don’t have access to art classes may not only miss out on a key creative outlet, but might also face greater difficulty mastering core subjects, higher dropout rates and more disciplinary problems,” Center for Online Education wrote in 10 Salient Studies on the Arts in Education.

My story is not unique. There are so many children and adults struggling with the same things that I do. How will children get to tap deeply into their creative selves, if they’re never given the opportunity to let it out? It turns my stomach to knots when I think of never having been introduced at such a young age to my beautiful, creative, artistic self. I honestly don’t know where I’d be without it.