What Happens When You Finally Make Space for Your Creative Life

I have been away for a bit. Not because anything major or dramatic happened — it was just one of those pulls in life when you are going, going, going, and suddenly, before you know it, you are getting pulled in directions you weren't exactly intending to be pulled in.

2026 has been unexpectedly a balancing act. The kind that feels like it needs to come to some sort of reckoning at some point. But between you and me, I'm hoping that comes much later.

In my time away, while life has been lifing, there has been one constant through line: my creative light. My everglow.

And there is a strange contrast I find myself living inside right now. One part of me feels clearer than ever, while another part of my life keeps moving in directions I never truly wanted. I can sit here pulling my hair out, wanting to understand what has been so deeply ingrained in me that allows me to trudge unwillingly down paths I do not want. When I really sit back and think about it, I feel my heart splitting in two — for me, for little Stephanie, and for anyone else who recognizes this within themselves.

Much of my propulsion in the direction I don't want to go is fueled by fear. Fearing the embarrassment of others seeing me as frivolous or unsuccessful. Shame of not taking advantage of every opportunity that might bring more money or more credentials. And an unease in the depths of my subconscious that I am different, unreliable, or unsafe. These fears run deep. Deep enough that I cannot casually override them when they come up and direct what happens next.

But here's what I know: even when fear is driving, the everglow doesn't go out.

Then, in the middle of all that fear and uncertainty, creativity did what it always seems to do for me. It showed me something I had not been ready to see for myself.

A few months ago, in a season of heaviness, while navigating my own Groundhog Day in a place haunted by trauma and pain for myself and others, my only refuge was the sweet and vast field of my own daydreams. And it was there that something found me. A vision, vivid and insistent, that kept appearing for weeks behind my closed eyes, no matter how many times I tried to move past it.

Finally, I took the hint.

I sat down and wrote it all out. Every detail, every action, every emotion I could feel coming from the characters. And it just kept coming.

I sat back in my chair, and I stared at the filled page.

In that moment, I knew. Not the almost-knowing I'd felt before — this was the smoking gun. I felt it in the base of my spine.

I want to be a writer. Not just someone who writes. A published author.

That's my north star. And I'm not letting fear drive me away from it.

So: I'm back. I'm stepping into my authorship journey, keeping all of my creative outlets alive — and I would love nothing more than for you to step into your creative life alongside me.