creating feels really weird right now..

on creativity amidst a revolution, grief of a past life & thawing out from our fear.

If I’m being honest, creating feels really weird right now..

We’ve met at this cross road many times before. It’s a moment when you want to say something but you don’t exactly know what to say.

When moving forward “business as usual” doesn’t feel quite right either. There’s a deep uncomfortability that is settling in my body right now. It’s filling in the cracks of my smile and hardens even more at night…

It feels like trying to fall into a deep sleep but you just keep tossing and turning.

It feels like walking miles with a small rock stuck in your shoe.

It feels like we are collectively grieving the lives we had before this moment in time (at least the lives we thought we had).

Because how is it possible to log on and see people being stripped away from their families right next to a Get Ready With Me?

It’s (for lack of a better word) – Weird.

And I’m not faulting those creators for continuing to show up… I just wonder if they feel it too.

I recently saw a creator say that the Harlem Renaissance surfaced at the same time as the Great Depression. That was an unlock for me that made me acknowledge that many things in this world often exist at the same time.

Grief and happiness. Creativity and depression. Rebuilding & deconstructing.

With that said, I think there is an importance in having content that encourages creativity. The type of content that soothes, activates, provides hope or simply creates space to feel. I think more of that content is what’s needed.

Even still, I’m currently in a space where I feel uninspired, stuck and stagnant.

Right now it doesn’t feel as exciting to create the same way it did a few months ago. But I have to acknowledge that the world we lived in, even a few months ago, is vastly different from the one we see today.

It’s hard to keep moving as normal when things around us seem to be falling apart. However, I’m grateful to be around to see the structure of a faulty foundation finally cracking.

And if anything, I think my role in this is to stand in the gap of feeling and shared experience.

Because I know we all feel it, even if we all aren’t saying something about it. “It” exists.

So it makes sense that it’s harder to show up, to check off a to-do list and act as if everything is completely fine.

& transparently I’m trying to find my footing amongst it all. To move with grace but move even still.

If you too are trying to thaw yourself from the fear, the grief, the heavy… I see you.

Because this is a feeling that isn’t resolved by simply logging off or scrolling away.

It’s something that we’re all feeling collectively.

So to that I say — do what makes sense for you, speak up for what’s right and keep going.

We need you.

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Content That Inspired This Post

Dear Black People by @yazzielynn on TikTok

I feel weird by @LJKA on TikTok: