Creating in the Midst of Grief

 

Gold Standard - Be A Lady Rebutals

I keep thinking I’ll have a moment to catch up. A day where things slow down, where I can sit, breathe, and make sense of any of this. But grief doesn’t work like that. It doesn’t wait, it doesn’t ask, it just shows up. And now I’m here, standing in the middle of it, with the same question circling me over and over. Do I keep creating or do I stop?

I’ve tried not creating. People say that’s what you’re supposed to do. Give yourself time, step away, rest. And I understand that. But for me, not creating doesn’t feel like rest. It feels like something going quiet inside of me in a way that makes everything heavier.

I sat in front of my work the other day, brush in my hand, canvas in front of me, and nothing happened. No pull, no direction, no urgency. Just this weight sitting in my chest, like everything I couldn’t say had nowhere to go. And then right behind that came the thought, you should be able to do this. You’ve done this your whole life. So why can’t you now?

And that’s when it hit me. This isn’t the first time. When my dad passed, something in me shifted in a way I didn’t understand at the time. I kept going, I showed up, but it wasn’t the same. And then after my divorce, I didn’t push through it. I didn’t work my way around it. I stopped. I put art away completely, like it belonged to a different version of me.

I don’t think I realized how far I had stepped away (5 years later) until the day I picked it back up again. I wasn’t planning anything. I was just sitting there painting with my son. He was 10. He was fully in it. No hesitation, no overthinking. Just creating. And something in me responded. Not loudly, not all at once, just enough. I remember feeling it before I even understood it, that small shift. Like something in me said, you’re still here.

I didn’t force it and I didn’t question it. I just followed it. And over time, it came back. Not the same, but real. I was then challenged by a now collector and dear friend Alfred to do my first solo show at his gallery in Indiana, and the shift took root. 

So now, standing here again in the middle of another kind of loss of a sibling, I can feel both sides of it. I know what it feels like to lose that part of myself, and I know what it feels like to find it again.

But that doesn’t make this easier. If anything, it makes me more aware of what’s at stake. Because I know how easy it is to step away and not realize how long you’ve been gone.

Some days I try to create. Some days I sit there and nothing moves. Some days I don’t even pick anything up. And I’ve had to start telling myself that still counts, because I’m still here.

There’s a part of me that’s careful, that doesn’t want to open this all the way up because I don’t know how deep it goes or what happens if I don’t come back up right away. So I stay just above it. I hold it together, keep it managed. But creating doesn’t really let me stay there. It has a way of pulling things up whether I’m ready or not.

And maybe that’s the point. Not to control it or rush through it, but to sit in it long enough to let something honest come out. Even if it’s messy, even if it doesn’t make sense yet.

I know I’m not the first to feel this kind of loss, and I won’t be the last. There’s something grounding in that. Not comforting, just steady. A reminder that this kind of weight has been carried before, and somehow people kept going.

So maybe creating in grief isn’t about making something good. Maybe it’s about not disappearing.

I don’t have a clean answer. But I do know this. I’ve lost this part of myself before, and I found my way back. So maybe this time it’s not about going back. Maybe it’s about learning who I am now.

And the only way I know how to stay above it, even just enough to keep moving, is through my faith. Not in a perfect, put together way. In a holding on kind of way. In a “this is bigger than me and I don’t have to carry all of it alone” kind of way. My resilience doesn’t come from being strong all the time. It comes from knowing I don’t have to be. It comes from trusting that even here, even in this, there is something holding me steady when I can’t do it on my own.

“I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” Philippians 4:13

I’m still here. And for today, that has to be enough.