Maybe You Just Need to Live

I like to say that healing happens in layers, and that growth happens in a spiral.

Although these days, we often talk about growth as a circle.

We often imagine growth as a circle — returning to the same place again and again.

I can’t speak for everyone.

I can only speak for myself.

For me, it feels like a spiral.

Maybe that’s because I had to learn how to deal with childhood trauma.

When I feel like too much attention is on me, my first instinct is to disappear.

So sometimes it’s difficult for me when I start moving forward or entering a new stage of growth.

It’s much easier for me now.

Because I have gone through so many setbacks, I’ve learned how to slow down.

I actually consider this one of my greatest achievements.

People often react automatically, before they even have time to think about slowing down.

And sometimes a very small pause can determine the outcome of a situation.

It gives us a choice.

And when we make a choice, we have some control over what happens next.

Otherwise, our trauma gets to decide the outcome for us.

And that’s sad.

Lately, I’ve been noticing something strange.

I’m a creative person, and I usually can’t imagine my routine without creating something.

It doesn’t really matter what.

I write. I create visuals for my texts. I run my Instagram.

But lately, I’ve noticed that I don’t seem to be interested in much.

Not because everything is bad.

Not because I’m unhappy.

Not even because I’m particularly tired.

I’m not tired.

I don’t think I could ever get tired of the creative process itself.

Today, I drove my daughter to see her psychologist, and suddenly I wanted to create some visuals using Victorian paintings as inspiration.

I became so absorbed in the process that I didn’t even notice I had arrived.

Creativity can’t disappear from my life.

If it did, it wouldn’t really be my life anymore.

And probably not me, either.

Sometimes there are days when we feel as if we’re stuck in an elevator that has stopped between floors.

You can’t go down, but you can’t go up either.

You just have to wait for the elevator to start moving again.

On its own.

So I don’t force myself on days like that.

I don’t try to figure out what comes next.

I don’t like the race.

I like slow creativity.

Not in the sense of spending a year writing the same essay.

I mean not chasing the result.

You simply stay in the flow.

You let it carry you.

I don’t interfere with the flow.

I just look at some of the things that used to occupy my attention and think:

Okay. And what now?

It’s a strange feeling when you don’t want to go back, but you also don’t know exactly where you want to go next.

For a long time, I thought losing interest meant losing motivation.

Especially because that’s what we’re constantly told.

Don’t stop! You’ll fall behind!

You just need more motivation!

You need someone to push you!

But sometimes there are days when I simply don’t want to do anything.

And the best push for me isn’t someone else.

It isn’t another, more successful author.

It’s my daughter sitting in the next room.

I want her to be proud of me.

But I didn’t arrive at that understanding immediately.

A year ago, if something stopped exciting me, I immediately assumed there was something wrong.

Maybe I needed a new goal.

Maybe I needed to push myself harder.

Maybe I needed to find something else to learn.

I like learning.

I don’t like teaching.

I like discovering new things, finding new ways, and doing whatever genuinely interests me.

Another book.

Another project.

Another idea.

Another version of myself to become.

The only competition worth entering is the one with yourself tomorrow.

We can become better only by becoming better than we were yesterday.

Lately, I’ve been wondering if sometimes losing interest means something completely different.

Maybe you have simply finished with something.

Not necessarily because it failed.

Sometimes you just get tired of something.

Sometimes you can succeed at something and still outgrow it.

You can spend years learning how to do something, finally become good at it, and then one morning realize that the thing itself no longer gives you the feeling it used to.

I’ve experienced that too.

And that can be surprisingly confusing.

Because nobody really teaches us what to do with the space that appears after we stop wanting what we used to want.

We know how to wait for something.

We know how to improve.

We know how to heal.

We know how to start over.

For some reason, coaches seem to teach us exactly that.

But nobody really teaches you what to do when you realize you got on the wrong train.

Or when you’ve been riding it for a while and suddenly realize you’d rather try a different one.

What do you do when you don’t actually want to start over?

What if you simply want something different?

I think I may be somewhere in that strange space right now.

Again.

It happens to me from time to time.

I go through another turn of the spiral and begin entering the next one.

Sometimes I think growth happens through the exhaustion of a pattern.

You repeat something often enough, and eventually it simply stops being interesting.

Not because you’ve finally found the perfect explanation.

Not because someone convinced you to let it go.

Not because you suddenly became wiser.

Sometimes you just get tired of the same story.

I’ve experienced this more than once.

At some point, I don’t need another answer.

I don’t need another explanation.

I don’t even need another lesson.

I’ve simply had enough.

And strangely, that can be enough.

I’ve written books, essays, and useful articles.

I’ve created images — funny, ridiculous, and serious.

I’ve experimented with formats, platforms, and ideas.

I’ve learned things I didn’t know how to do before.

And every time, I was genuinely interested.

I never had to force myself to do those things.

Every time, something new caught my attention.

And then I used those skills somewhere else.

And somewhere else.

And somewhere else again.

And perhaps the most unexpected part is that I don’t feel like I need to prove that I can do them anymore.

I know I can.

And that’s enough.

There is a certain freedom in that.

But freedom can feel strangely empty at first.

As if you had been running a marathon, reached the finish line, got what you came for— and stopped.

There is nowhere else to run.

Because when you stop running toward the old destination, you suddenly notice that you don’t have to run anywhere.

And then comes the simple question that, for some reason, we rarely ask:

What do I actually want?

Maybe you were running because everyone else was running.

Or maybe you were running because you wanted to show everyone how beautifully you could run.

Like a deer.

Proudly tossing its head from side to side.

Where do I go from here?

I don’t have a beautiful answer yet.

The only thing I know for sure is that this is not the final destination.

And maybe that’s the point.

Maybe I don’t need to know today.

Maybe I’m not lost.

Maybe I’m just between versions of my life.

And both of them are equally beautiful.

That’s the only thing I need to know.

And perhaps the only thing I’m completely sure of.

Maybe this is not the end of creativity.

I’ve already said that it can’t disappear.

Not from my reality.

Maybe creativity is simply entering another stage.

I don’t know yet.

And for once, I don’t feel the need to know immediately.

There are things in life that require my attention right now.

There are people I love.

There are ordinary days that still need to be lived.

Right now, I just want to live.

To breathe the autumn air that still remembers summer.

To collect leaves and chestnuts with my daughter in the park and admire how beautifully nature can decorate them without a single drop of paint or a single stroke of a brush.

To drink my morning coffee without rushing.

To watch a movie under a big, warm blanket with my husband for the hundredth time and laugh at it as if it were the first.

To think about nothing else.

And somewhere inside all of that, something new is probably forming.

I just can’t see it yet.

Maybe I don’t need to.

Happiness loves silence.

Maybe sometimes growth doesn’t feel like becoming more.

Maybe it feels like becoming less interested in what no longer fits.

And maybe the silence that follows isn’t emptiness.

Maybe it’s space for the next thing.

Sometimes silence isn’t empty.

Sometimes it heals.

Sometimes it’s worth listening to.

And when we do, we may discover that it is filled with millions of shades of things we haven’t learned to understand yet.

Sometimes the vessel is already full.

We just haven’t realized it yet.

Alexandra is a creative writer and visual storyteller. She likes experimenting with forms. This personal essay has previously been published on Medium at https://medium.com