Protecting Your Creativity Amid the Chaos of Life

I woke up this morning exhausted in every possible way—physically, emotionally, spiritually.

After working late into the night, I was up again around 5 a.m., staring at an email from my ex’s attorney. The message was short, but the subtext was loud:

Sign this and quietly walk away from protecting your children.

I won’t share the legal details here, but I will say this:

when you’re a parent, there are lines you simply cannot cross.

There are documents you cannot sign.

There are silences you cannot accept.

One sentence in that email hit me harder than the rest.

It implied that her time was too valuable to be “wasted” drafting something I wouldn’t agree to—as if my concerns for my children’s wellbeing were an inconvenience rather than the core issue.

In that moment, anger woke me up more than any alarm ever could!

I thought about my daughters. One still looks deeply unhappy. The other is under the powerful influence of a narrative that doesn’t feel like her own. I can see it. I can feel it. And I know, with every part of me, that I can’t just step aside and hope it all works out.

So I did something simple but important: I wrote back.

In the interest of your time, let me be explicitly clear: the concerns I have raised about our children’s wellbeing have not been addressed. I am not signing the stipulation of discontinuance.

That was it. A few lines. Clear. Firm. Done.

And somehow, after writing those words, I finally slept.

The Small Mercies That Keep Us Going

When I woke up again, I had missed calls and messages from someone close to me who wanted to drop off food and water and take me for coffee. Within minutes, I was dressed and out the door.

We ended up at a little Italian café I’d been wanting to try but had never managed to find. There was good coffee, Italian music, and that gentle hum of life happening around us. We talked about music, writing, creative frustration, and the constant battle for time to make the things that matter most to us.

We’re both guilty of the same thing: saying we don’t have time to create, while also being able to point to exact pockets of time we’ve given away to something less meaningful.

Yes, we’re tired.

Yes, life is heavy right now.

But I don’t want to buy into the story that there is no time.

There is time. There are ten minutes. There are small windows. There are choices.

And I’m done putting my God-given talent second.

The Thing That Wants to Come Through You

I said something out loud this morning that I’ve felt for a long time:

The thing that is meant to come into the light through me and my experiences—that is why I am alive.

What I can contribute may not change the world in some grand, cinematic way, but it might help someone.

It might offer language to a feeling they haven’t been able to name. It might remind them they’re not alone. It might nudge them back toward their own creative life.

I believe this with my whole heart.

We talked about musicians who have stepped away from their art to do other work—honest work, necessary work, but work that doesn’t tap into their deepest gifts. And it struck me how often we all do this.

We take on roles and jobs that slowly suffocate the creative spark we were born with. The juice. The muse. The quiet, insistent voice that says, This is what you’re here to make.

Obligation has its place. Bills need to be paid. Children need to be protected. Life is not a romantic montage of uninterrupted studio time and perfect lighting.

But still—there is a stage we’re meant to stand on. Not necessarily a literal one, but a space where our creative force is allowed to move through us and into the world.

Not for glory. Not for fame.

For aliveness.

The Light of Creative Expression

There is no greater light, for me, than the one that comes through creative expression or to watch my children express theirs.

It’s how we process what we’ve lived.

It’s how we transform pain into meaning, confusion into clarity, and chaos into something we can hold in our hands and say, This is what it felt like.

It’s how we see the world—and how we remake it.

Even now, in a time when artificial intelligence can generate almost anything, I find myself hoping it pushes us back toward what only humans can do: create from lived experience, from a specific heart, with a specific history.

There is no way to replace that.

I’m rooting for humanity. I’m rooting for the talents we’re born with. And in these still-transitional days of my life, I’m especially rooting for myself—to finally turn down the volume on the noise, the fear, the exhaustion, and to turn up the volume on the work I’m meant to do.

From the Sidelines to the Field

For much of my life, I’ve felt like a sideliner—watching others take the field, score the goals, receive the applause.

But the applause I’m after isn’t the roar of a crowd. It’s the quiet recognition in another person’s chest. It’s the feeling of someone reading or hearing my words and thinking, Yes. That. That’s how it feels.

Right now, the emotional fabric of what it means to be human is taking center stage in so many conversations. We’re talking about burnout, trauma, creativity, purpose, and what it means to live a life that feels like our own.

I don’t want to live from fear. Or from exhaustion. Or from the belief that my turn will come “someday.”

I’m done with those things.

This is my time to step onto my own stage—page by page, day by day, word by word—and to honor the creative force that refuses to give up on me.