Losing My Creativity

I was 36 years old when I got pregnant with my first (and only) child. My husband jokes that the 10^th wedding anniversary isn’t the tin anniversary, but the baby anniversary. One Saturday night, we were sitting having a romantic, candlelit anniversary dinner and the following Saturday night, he was bringing takeout pad thai to my room at the hospital.  I mention all of this because the timing meant that I turned 40 and had my midlife crisis the same year that I spent most of my time with a toddler. Every day, my daughter came home from day care with half a dozen papers covered with art that she had made during the day. She made collages of paper and stickers; she drew wild circles of color with markers; and she painted with brushes, “dot-dots” and just about anything else she could get paint on. At home, I would pour out paint into trays and watch as she mixed colors with wild abandon, slashed paint onto paper in broad, free strokes and then painted her hands to make hand prints on paper.  I would watch her fearlessly create and think, “When did I lose this? When did I stop being so free with my creativity?”