Coming Back Doesn’t Mean Going Back

What I’m learning about building a creative life around the life I actually have.

Before Charlotte was born, I had a pretty clear picture in my head of what coming back to a creative life would eventually look like.

My thought process was: at some point after maternity leave, I would get back to Daily Pages. Monday through Friday, noon Eastern, just like before. Maybe I’d just start with Monday and ease into the rest of the week. Maybe I’d set the baby up in a little bouncer or a pack ‘n play next to me while I made. Maybe I’d get really good at coordinating her naps (this was my real goal) with Daily Pages. I figured that it might take a little while to figure out, but eventually this familiar part of my life would slide right back into its old spot.

I knew having a baby would change pretty much every part of my life. I just didn’t realize how much it would change the way I needed to - or honestly, wanted to - fit creativity into my days.

One of the biggest things shaping my return has been my body. As a person with overlapping chronic health issues, I had a relatively easy pregnancy, and a very easy labor & delivery. But, getting physically back to where I need to be has taken longer than I expected. I was back at the cardiologist’s office with chest pain 4 days post partum. My headaches have been back with a vengeance (tried Botox to no avail). Pumping breastmilk is legitimately a full-time job (and not something I was expecting to be doing at all). Charlie is still waking up once or twice most nights, which means that when she takes a decent nap during the day, there is a very good chance I’m going to need to take one too.

And that getting her down for that nap often happens right around noon. The exact time I used to sit down for Daily Pages.

I still catch myself looking at my watch and realizing it’s 12:30 and I completely missed the window to check in with the Daily Pages livestream. I get a little annoyed, also a little sad. There’s also that teensy part of me that feels like I’m letting people down because I’m not able to be there every day the way I used to be.

For almost six years, Daily Pages Live at noon, Monday through Friday, was somewhere people could reliably find me (which even writing out sounds unbelievable). We made together. I sent out emails with my finished pages. I showed up and we hung out. That was a significant of my work, my creativity, and my actual life, and of course I miss it like crazy.

But the other, slightly more realistic part of me knows that doing that for well more than five years was pretty incredible to begin with. All my people understand that lives change and evolve. The community hasn’t disappeared because the way I participate in it has changed (which is the real success here). My heart and my body both know that I’m just not able to be back in exactly the same way right now.

And I think that’s connected to one of the most important things having a baby has taught me: basically nothing goes the way you think it’s going to go--easy or hard.

There were things I researched and worried about because I thought they were going to be incredibly difficult, and then they turned out to be pretty easy (labor & delivery). There were other things I barely thought twice about because I assumed they would be simple (or “natural”), and those have been way harder than I ever expected (breastfeeding and everything having to do with feeding in general).

You can prepare. You can do the research. You can ask questions. You can make plans. And then you actually have to do the thing, live the life, and find out what the it actually requires. If you’ve ever spent any time with me in a class or working through a project, you know I’m a huge fan of learning from when shit goes sideways.

I used to be a huge perfectionist, I’d let screw ups defeat me and I’d feel really bad about not getting every single thing correct on the first try (thanks my 20s). Then I realized one of the best ways to actually learn how to do something was to screw up and learn through imperfection (Thanks my 30s).

And honestly, my studio might be the most literal example of all of this.

Even though I had a (relatively) easy pregnancy, the last few weeks were really rough physically. Charlotte was sitting right up against some of the nerves in my back, and I legit couldn’t stand up straight or even sit down for more than five minutes at a time. The last two weeks were me laying down on the couch or in bed almost the whole time (I watched a lot of quality TV). So at that point, cleaning and organizing my studio had moved very, very far down the priority list.

So I left it a mess. Like an absolute total disaster. Just piles of stuff everywhere.

After Charlie was born, it became an extremely convenient place to put even more stuff. If something didn’t have an immediate home (the second car seat, stuff for when she was a little older, and all the random stuff I was collecting for her baby scrapbook), the studio was right there and it wasn’t really being used, so it was the perfect holding place for all the extra stuff. Eventually there was so much back there, completely unorganized, that I barely had room to walk around. It was a legit fire hazard, and if I didn’t have five other doors to get out of my house, it would have made me incredibly anxious.

And this also meant that even if I suddenly had a perfect thirty-minute window and all the creative energy in the world, the place where I used to go when I wanted to make something, was pretty much off-limits, especially if I had the baby in tow.

Last week, I finally cleaned off my desk. Not because I had some beautiful burst of creative motivation, but because Jeff needed to do a video interview on my computer.

Because of Daily Pages and the podcast, I’ve got the nice camera and microphone setup, and the background of his video was going to be my desk. My absolutely disastrous desk. I wanted him to be able to go into his interviews feeling confident so I started straightening things up so his video would look good.

Once I got started, I got into a flow and kept going. I put things away, organized what I could, and made piles of things that I personally don’t want anymore so I can bring them over to the library craft swap in a few weeks.

There is still plenty left to do. There are things that need homes and things I still want to declutter. None of my IKEA raskog carts make sense, I’ve still got piles of paper that I do want to keep, and my computer desk is still cluttery as hell. My studio has not magically transformed into an Instagram-ready craft room.

But I can use my desk again. And once I had some actual space back there, I realized I could make the room work a little better for the life I have now too.

We got an extra Pack ’n Play from an infant class at our local community center, and it had mostly been hanging out in my bedroom taking up space. Now it has a really good spot up against the wall by the sliding glass door, where Charlie can hang out with me while I’m making something at my desk or working on my computer.

Standing in the studio, with the cleaned-off desk and the Pack ’n Play sitting against the wall, I was like—maybe I’ve been using the wrong measurement for whether or not I’ve “come back”.

If the measurement is whether I’m sitting at my desk doing Daily Pages at noon every weekday, then no. I’m not back. But creativity hasn’t been absent either.

Instead of waiting until I could get back into the studio, I started keeping a few supplies in the living room, where I actually spend most of my day. I’ve been using this fun little yellow Delfonics pouch I bought myself last year. I can keep a handful of things together, grab it when I have a few minutes, and not turn making something into an entire production.

I’ve also been taking an absolutely unreasonable number of photographs (mostly of the babe). I’ve kept up with my baby/family newsletter. I’ve made photo books. I get my Brandi mail every month, and it’s been really fun having something creative show up and inspire me.

I’ve also started getting super excited about December Daily. I’ve been looking at inspo on Instagram and on Ali Edwards blog and thinking about what I might want to do this year (I think this is going to be an amazing excuse for full page baby photos). It’s a big project, and I already know that if I really want to do it, I’m going to need to plan for it. But getting excited about a future project has always been a big part of my creative life too.

And last week, I finally posted a Thursday3 again.

I needed a picture of myself for something I was working on recently, so I opened my camera roll and realized that I have approximately two thousand photographs of the baby and almost no photographs of me without the baby.

Which is like, totally fine, and absolutely makes sense. She’s brand new! I spend all day with her. She’s literally the cutest baby that has ever existed. I want to photograph every single thing she does (and her grandparents constantly ask to see photos and videos of everything she does.) But I don’t want to disappear from my own documentation because I became her mom.

I started Thursday3 about fifteen years ago because I wanted a regular reminder to turn the camera around and document myself. I’ve always talked about how I wish I had more photos of my mom and my grandma throughout their lives. And honestly, even though it became completely routine—starting that habit fifteen years ago wasn’t effortless either. I had alarms on my phone. I put it on my calendar. I was doing it at a specific place during a specific time, but I still needed something reminding me: Hey. It’s Thursday. Take the selfie. Post the selfie.

So I’m doing that again. And I hope you’ll join me again too.

I want Charlotte to have pictures of her mom. I want her to know who I was during all these years when I was taking thousands and thousands of photographs of her. And maybe even more importantly, I want her to grow up seeing that I thought documenting myself was worthwhile. I want her to know that she gets to do that too.

Thursday3 has been one of the easiest outlets to come back—something tiny that I totally know how to do, has a regular routine with social accountability, can really help me build some creativity into regular everyday life again.

And on the other hand, my other biggest creative returns this summer looked almost exactly the opposite.

Awesome Ladies Live gave me an entire weekend where creativity was the thing I was supposed to be doing—and it really happened. The time was already blocked off. We had a specific project to work on. I had other people making alongside me. As soon as the weekend started, it felt like I was exactly where I was supposed to be. And yes, it totally helps that I have an incredible partner who is an amazing dad, and I didn’t have to think twice about what Charlie needed, but man did it feel good to be back in that creative flow state again.

My favorite part of the weekend was when we were standing around the table swapping the collage pages we’d made with one another. Everyone had access to all of the same supplies, and everyone had made something completely different. Seeing what everyone created and then physically sharing those pieces with each other was just super cool, and definitely one of those moments where I could feel that creative facilitator part of myself light back up.

ALL also helped me realize something:

Coming back looks like many different things all at the same time.

In some instances, creativity worked because I’ve made it super small. My yellow Delfonics pouch on the coffee table in the living room. My Thursday3 weekly selfie. Whatever little thing I can do without waiting for the perfect moment (honestly, cooking has been an amazing creative outlet lately).

And, in other instances creativity worked because I made it big. An entire ALL weekend. One big project that we worked on. Or a room full of other people from around the world.

What I realized is that that I don’t need to force my old routine into my new life (and honestly, can’t force my old routine into my new life). And the best thing to be doing is paying attention to whatever is actually helping me make things now.

I think for a while I was measuring my return from maternity leave against the wrong thing.

Coming back doesn’t mean going back.

The creative life I had before Charlotte was awesome. A lot of it worked beautifully for me for a long time, and there are parts of it I absolutely want to keep (creating in small notebooks being at the forefront). But I don’t have to—nor will i ever be able to—reconstruct that exact creative life post-baby.

Guess what, you don’t have to either.

Whatever you were doing in the past that made your creative routine doable just might look completely different now. And that’s totally okay. Everyone goes through life changes, both ups and downs, and it doesn’t mean that your creativity is gone forever.

It probably just means you haven’t figured out what the new version looks like yet.

You might need to move your supplies into the room where you actually spend your time, put an alarm back on your phone, make something alongside your friends, give yourself one single specific project, or decide that right now five minutes is what you’ve got to work with. And sometimes, the thing that works is blocking off an entire weekend.

Different doesn’t mean worse.

Right now, I have a desk that is clean enough to use. Not perfectly clean. Enough.

I have a yellow pouch with a few of my favorite supplies on the couch in the living room. I’ve got my Thursday reminder on my phone as well as a ridiculous number of baby photos. There are upcoming projects I’m excited about. And, I think most importantly, I have a safe space for Charlie in my studio.

The baby is in the room with us right now IYKYK.

The goal isn’t to make the baby or all my new mom stuff disappear long enough for my old creative life to suddenly appear again. I’m figuring out how to make enough room for creativity inside this new life I’m actually living.

And more than anything, I’m really curious to see what I make from here.

Throughout September, I’m going to be talking more about beginning exactly where we are—with the time, energy, space, supplies, stories, and lives we actually have. Not the imaginary version where everything has finally settled down and we live in our perfectly clean homes, decorated with large custom craft furniture, where we have an unlimited budget for both time and supplies.

But for now, what I want is to hear back from you:

What would you like to come back to—and what do you think might need to be different this time?

Hit reply or leave a comment and tell me.

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This week’s Currently List

Watching—A bunch of new to me stuff: Furious (Hulu), Lanterns (HBO), and rewatching Lupin (Netflix) before the new season comes out in October.

Reading—Literally nothing important. I’ve got a baby book on my coffee table that I haven’t started, and a novel sitting on my shelf that I’ve been meaning to get to.

Listening—Harry Potter audiobooks while falling asleep. Lawrence and Vulfpeck in the car/on YouTube.

Making—Lots of good food with summer produce. It’s tomato season, so I’m having fun with those and whatever else we get from the CSA or the Farmers’ Market.

Feeling—Pretty okay. My headaches were decent this week. We didn’t have bad weather or anything, so the week was pretty mild.

Planning—The rest of the fall, substack essays, Awesome Ladies Live 2027, and some fun stuff for when my family comes into town.

Loving—How hilarious the baby is. She knows the sign to be picked up, and she uses it all the time. She also makes the best noises to communicate and I’m pumped for when she can actually start to use words.

Download the Currently List: https://theawesomeladiesproject.com/currently/