Why I didn’t create for 20 years

The step from being a student to working full-time was very hard for me. Whereas university had been paradise, with lots of time to study, see my friends, draw and sleep, being an adult with a job and a house to run was… well, a lot. I needed to sleep in order to be able to go back to work after the weekend. I was able to do some chores, see some friends, spend some time with my partner. But it didn’t feel sustainable.

I realize now that I stopped drawing the day I started working. I did find a creative outlet in writing, which I enjoyed. But looking back, I was just too exhausted to create.

When my body finally forced me to stop working, I was confronted by the damage I had done: I slept and slept and slept. I

About a year in, a tiny bit of energy started to emerge, and when my doctor asked what I wanted to do with it, I said: I want to go to art school for two days a week. After two months a classmate told me: “You are starting to bloom.” She was right. Painting felt like coming home.

There’s a concept I want to share with you: ‘creating from the overflow’.

In order to truly live, you need to first fill your cup. You need food, rest, support, nature, travel,… whatever fuels you. If you start giving (in any form) before your cup is full, you’ll fall in the trap I did: You’ll need weekends to recover from the week, and count down until the next day off, again and again.

It’s only when my cup was filled to the rim (with cat cuddles, naps, evenings with friends, and afternoons in my garden) and started to overflow, I was able to become the person I was meant to be.

The past six years haven’t been easy, but there’s one memory from 2020 I want to share with you. I had just decided to change a spare room into an art studio, and I was fully concentrating on painting. I looked up and it hit me: “This is what I was born to do.”

That feeling, warm and exhilarating and hopeful, is what I wish for you.