Man, I remember being completely stuck. Like, really, really stuck. For years, I just churned away at a job that was, well, it was a job. It paid the bills, put food on the table, kept the lights on. But it felt like it was slowly draining me, bit by bit, until there was nothing left but this tired shell. Every day was a carbon copy of the last. I used to draw, sketch, just doodle ridiculous stuff for fun when I was younger, and I even messed around with writing short stories that went nowhere. But all that? Long gone. Buried under spreadsheets and endless meetings. It felt like my inner kid, the one who just wanted to play and make things, had packed up and left without saying goodbye.
Then, life, as it often does, decided to kick me right in the teeth. Not in a bad way, exactly, but it was a jolt. I was working my tail off, burning the candle at both ends and then some, trying to prove myself in a company that honestly, didn’t give a damn. Late nights, early mornings, weekends swallowed whole. My health started to suffer, my relationships felt distant, and I just woke up one day, looked at my reflection, and didn’t recognize the person staring back. All the passion, the drive, the little quirks that made me me? Gone. Replaced by a constant hum of anxiety and exhaustion. I was totally burnt out, fried to a crisp. So, I did something completely out of character. I just quit. No two weeks’ notice, no backup plan, no big farewell. Just… done. Packed up my desk, walked out, and never looked back.
Finding My Feet Again, One Doodle at a Time
For a few weeks, I just kind of floated. My friends and family thought I’d lost my mind. “You just walked away from a steady paycheck?” Yeah, I did. I needed to breathe. I spent days just staring at the wall, honestly. Feeling completely lost and rudderless. But in that quiet, in that utter emptiness, something started to stir. It was almost imperceptible at first, like a tiny whisper. I found an old, dusty sketchbook shoved in the back of a drawer, full of half-finished drawings from a decade ago. And a cheap set of colored pencils I’d bought on a whim and never used. Just sitting there.
One afternoon, with nothing else to do and feeling antsy, I just picked up a pencil and started to doodle. No plan, no goal, just let the pencil move. Squiggles, weird faces, patterns. Stuff that made absolutely no sense. And for the first time in what felt like forever, I felt a tiny spark. Not a roaring fire, just a little flicker, but it was there. It was like my inner kid, that creative spirit, had poked its head out from behind the corner, curious to see if the coast was clear.
I committed to it then. Not to become a famous artist, or to make money, but just to do it. For myself. Every single day, I carved out an hour, sometimes two, just to mess around. I didn’t care if it was good. I didn’t even show anyone for the longest time. I just sketched, painted with cheap watercolors, even wrote some ridiculously bad poetry. It was pure play. I let myself be messy. I let myself make mistakes. I just pushed past that voice in my head that kept saying, “This is stupid, you’re wasting your time.” I told that voice to shut its trap. It was like I was learning to walk again, but instead of my legs, it was my imagination.
- I started with super cheap supplies. No pressure to make masterpieces with expensive stuff.
- I set an alarm for “playtime” every day, no exceptions. Treated it like a crucial appointment.
- I kept a “junk journal” – a place where anything went, no filters, no judgment.
- I looked up online tutorials, not to copy, but to get ideas for new techniques to try, just to see what happened.
- I made a pact with myself: zero self-criticism during the creative process. Critique could come later, if at all.
Slowly, that little flicker grew. It wasn’t about the output; it was about the process. It was about doing. I started feeling lighter, more myself. That dull ache of exhaustion started to recede. My mind felt sharper, too. I even started to share some of my doodles with a close friend, just little things, nothing serious. And their casual, genuine encouragement was like pouring a little bit of fuel on that fire. It wasn’t about praise; it was just nice to have someone see it, acknowledge that I was making something again.
This whole journey, from being completely burnt out and lost, to finding my way back through simply playing and creating, that’s how I really know about embracing that creative spirit. It wasn’t a choice I made from a stable place; it was a lifeline I grabbed onto when I had absolutely nothing else to hold. That period of forced unemployment, of having nothing but time and a blank page, that was my Page of Cups showing up in action. It forced me to look inwards, to try something new, to trust my gut, and to remember that part of me that just wanted to make things for the sheer joy of it. And honestly? It changed everything. I’m not a famous artist now, or a bestselling author, but I’m a hell of a lot happier, and I’m always, always creating something. It doesn’t matter what it is. The act of doing it, of nurturing that playful part of me, that’s the real win.
