What Happens When the People Who Care for Everyone Else Stop Creating?

I used to think I wasn’t making art because I was too busy.

I’m not sure that’s completely true anymore.

I was busy. Teaching is busy. Caring for other people is busy. Building lessons, answering emails, adapting materials, solving problems, managing emotions, sitting in meetings, noticing what everyone else needs before they even ask...it all takes something from you.

But I don’t think I stopped creating because I had nothing left to make.

I think I stopped creating because every bit of my creativity had become useful.

It had to help a student. It had to become a lesson. It had to solve a problem.It had to support someone else.

And somewhere along the way, I forgot what it felt like to make something just because I wanted to.

When I was a kid, creating was easy. I loved art contests, art camps, museum days, glitter gel pens. Honestly…I still love glitter gel pens. They remain my preferred writing utensil, and I stand by that.

My Aunt Ronda was like that too. She could bedazzle anything. There was always a reason to sparkle.

She came to my Girl Scouts meeting once and taught everyone how to make polymer clay beads. She made jewelry. She made me this black lace-looking beaded necklace for prom. She loved to travel. She loved making the world more beautiful.

Her energy was bright.

I wear her ring when I work because it reminds me of that. Of beauty. Of creativity. Of warmth. Of bringing more sparkle into ordinary spaces.

Then I became a teacher.

And teaching became my art.

I created lessons. Systems. visuals. resources. classroom routines. adapted assignments. websites. videos. tools. I made things constantly.

But I wasn’t really making them for me.

I was making what other people needed from me.

That is the strange thing about caring professions. Teachers, nurses, therapists, social workers, caregivers, mentors, parents…we are creating all the time. We create safety. We create structure. We create calm. We create solutions out of absolutely nothing.

You have one lesson, 28 students, three different emotional emergencies, no working Wi-Fi, and an activity that is very clearly dying in front of you at 9:17 a.m.

Create.

Adapt.

Explain it differently.

Draw a picture.

Move the seats.

Turn it into a game.

Try again.

Then we go home and say, “I wish I were creative.”

The irony is almost rude.

I don’t think people in caring professions lose their creativity. I think we get very good at spending it all on other people.

For me, physical art came back when I was not in a good place mentally. I started journaling because I needed help. I was trying to understand what I needed more of: connection, letting go, clarity, confidence, self-compassion.

Eventually, those journals became something I wanted to share.

But then I needed covers.

I didn’t want to use AI art. I didn’t want to just hire someone else. So I started figuring out how to make the art myself.

And that changed things.

It changed things because I was making something nobody needed from me.

No rubric.

No IEP goal.

No learning objective.

No one waiting on me to solve their problem.

Just color. Shape. texture. curiosity. joy.

Now I sell my art at the beach. I host creative experiences. I make journals. I sit with people who say, “I’m not creative,” and I want to gently tell them: I don’t think that’s true. I think maybe your creativity has been overworked.

I don’t want to turn creativity into another wellness task exhausted people are supposed to do correctly.

This is not “wake up at 5 a.m. and paint before your morning gratitude walk.”

Sometimes creativity is ugly.

Sometimes it is stickers in a journal like you’re nine.

Sometimes it is three sentences.

Sometimes it is beads.

Sometimes it is making a beautiful classroom.

Sometimes it is gathering people around a table and making them feel safe.

Sometimes it is painting something weird at the beach because no one is grading you and no one needs it to be useful.

I used to think creativity meant being good at art.

Now I think creativity is the creation of joy for the sake of joy.

It is expressing something in a way another person might feel too.

It is making something beautiful because beauty matters.

It is remembering that you are not only here to be useful.

A lot of the art experiences I create now come from this idea.

You do not have to be an artist.

You do not have to make something impressive.

You do not have to be good at it to be allowed to create.

Sometimes you just need a table, some materials, and permission to make something that does not take care of anyone else.

Because maybe the part of you that wants to create is not extra.

Maybe it is one of the parts of you that helps you stay alive.