Rediscovering Your Creative Identity After Motherhood

I didn’t expect to cry over a vinyl cutting machine. But there I was.
The kids were finally asleep, the kitchen was a mess, and I was sitting at my laptop, adding a craft tool to my cart with shaky hands. Not because I needed it. But because it felt like the first moment I’d made space for creativity after motherhood, and I hadn’t realized how much I missed it.

It wasn’t really about vinyl. Or projects. Or Pinterest boards.
It was about remembering that I like making things. That deep-down pull to create something with my hands. To get lost in a quiet task that’s mine alone. And somehow, in that late-night moment, it all came rushing back.

Motherhood Reshapes You—and Sometimes Buries the Best Parts

No one tells you how easy it is to forget yourself.
Not in a dramatic, falling-apart kind of way. More like a slow unraveling. A quiet erasure. You stop creating. You stop dreaming. You stop making space for anything that doesn’t serve the family schedule.

You tell yourself it’s just a season, but months pass, and you still haven’t picked up the pen, the tool, or the idea you once loved.

I used to write essays just for the joy of it. I’d scribble in the margins of receipts or jot ideas in the notes app while waiting in the pickup line. And then life happened. I didn’t stop creating because I stopped caring.
I stopped because I didn’t know where it fit anymore.

Creativity After Motherhood Isn’t Gone

I’ve written before about how slow living fuels creativity, and how making time for creative rituals—even five minutes—can reconnect us to ourselves. And I still believe that.

But I also know how hard it can be. It felt impossible for me at times.
Not because I didn’t want it, but because I was constantly fighting my own brain. The never-ending to-do list. The mom guilt. The pressure to do something useful instead.

People love to say, “You just need to make time.” And maybe I’ve said that too. But anyone who’s tried to squeeze a creative thought between school drop-off and defrosting dinner knows—it’s not always that simple.

Creativity doesn’t require hours of silence and a perfectly clean desk.
Sometimes it’s about making something in the cracks. Letting five imperfect minutes be enough.

It took me a while to realize I didn’t have to go back to who I was before.
I just needed to let her pull up a chair beside me again. To say: I still see you.

What Creative Time Really Looks Like for Moms

Let’s be honest: there’s nothing Pinterest-perfect about it.

It’s journaling in the car line. Sketching in the hum of the house after bedtime. Woodburning one tiny flower on a piece of scrap wood before someone yells for another snack.

Sometimes it’s just staring at the page and giving yourself credit for showing up at all.

And yet—those moments matter.
They remind us we’re still in there. That we’re not just caretakers or schedulers.
We’re creative people with something to say and a deep need to make.

If that feels familiar, I wrote more about this in Creativity in the Cracks —a letter to the moms trying to create in the middle of everything.

The Myth of “When Things Calm Down”

People keep telling me I’ll have more time “when things calm down.”
I don’t know who else feels this way, but I don’t think things are going to calm down.

I think this might just be it—this beautiful, overstimulating stretch of life that’s loud and relentless and, somehow, still deeply creative.

The trick, I’m learning, isn’t to fight for time like it’s a rare gem.
It’s to notice the time that already exists.

The five minutes in the pickup line. The twenty seconds after bedtime, before your phone steals your attention.
The moment when you catch yourself staring at the light on your coffee and think, huh, that’s kind of pretty.

That counts.

A Small Confession

Last week, I found an old essay I wrote before kids. It was overly metaphorical and kind of dramatic (okay, very dramatic)—but I loved it.
It felt like visiting someone I hadn’t seen in years.

I’m not her anymore. But I’m still someone who makes things.
Sometimes slowly. Sometimes sloppily. Sometimes at 10 p.m. with a scrap of pine and just enough energy to burn one more leaf.

I don’t have a perfect routine or some secret productivity hack.
But I’ve stopped waiting for the ideal moment to create.
Now, when creativity taps me on the shoulder—even in the middle of the mess—I try to say yes.

What about you? Have you felt that quiet pull to make something, even when life is loud? I’d love to hear. Let’s talk in the comments.