Finding My Creative Voice in the Middle of Things

I used to think creativity belonged to the mountaintop. That I had to wait until the perfect conditions arrived—time, space, clarity, money—before I could write, build, or breathe my own art into being.

But the truth is, life doesn’t pause.The laundry piles. The bills come due. The grief arrives uninvited. The unexpected detours. The middle stretches on.

And so, I started creating in the middle of things. Not in spite of them, but because of them. Because the middle is where my edges show. Where the rawness lives. Where the voice that won’t wait starts speaking whether I’m ready or not.

My creative voice isn’t polished. It’s marked with interruptions, with half-finished thoughts scribbled on a dozen half full journals, with words stolen in between caregiving, bizzing (my new word for working), and hustling. And yet—it’s real. It’s mine. It’s alive.

Maybe the middle isn’t the enemy of creativity. Maybe it’s the forge.