A few weeks ago, I was out with some friends. One of the girls in the group is the kind of person who will ask really deep, profound questions that spark amazing conversations, and I love that about her.
Her question that evening: “Have you found that you’ve gotten less creative as you’ve gotten older?”
The answers varied in the group, and I don’t remember the exact answer I gave in the moment. However, as I’ve thought about it, I realized that my creativity (at least in terms of my vocation as a writer) was muted for a while, and is experiencing a resurgence now that I’m in my 30s.
Portrait of the artist as a young girl
I was definitely a creative kid. It makes sense because both my parents are creative people, even though they probably wouldn’t describe themselves as such.
Most of my early childhood memories involve art projects led by my mom, and this was before mommy bloggers and Pinterest flooded the internet with kids craft ideas. My mom has saved a lot of our childhood seasonal décor crafts that she still puts out every year, to our embarrassment. I have a random memory of us making blue milkshakes one day. Why? Just cuz.
My dad the engineer is the kind of guy who comes up with a creative strategy to fix almost anything. He even designed an entire system to securely hang their off-season patio furniture from the ceiling of the garage using nothing but chains and hooks. He also makes beautiful stained glass pieces that are treasured keepsakes.
As for me, I was way more of an artsy kid than a sports kid. The only sport I was ever half-decent at was dance, and I think it’s because it tied into my love of theater. I’ve talked about this in numerous previous posts, but in case you’re new here, I was a massive theater nerd—way before Glee made it cool. I had always written stories, but I pivoted to focus on writing around my senior year of high school. I majored in writing in college and wrote a lot—for school and for fun—and then in my 20s, I just…stopped.
Writer’s block
Most of my friends around the table that night are in their mid-20s. Yes, at 32, I am the wise old crone of the group. At their age, my creative juices were alarmingly low. It isn’t that I didn’t have ideas for things to write about; I just didn’t have the courage, confidence, or frankly energy to execute them. Who had time to make art when I was trying to build a career, pay my bills, have a social life, and maybe, just maybe, discern my vocation? I let life got in the way of my creativity.
I still blogged, but it was infrequent. I wrote for other publications, but only when I had a deadline. I even wrote as part of one of my 9 to 5 jobs, but I wasn’t excited about the work I was doing. Writing became a slog—not something natural I did to express myself, but something I did in fits and spurts. I lost a lot of my joy in writing during this time, and I wasn’t sure it would come back.
Thirty, flirty and…creative
In researching this piece, I found a Psychology Today article that points to two possible ages when creativity peaks—your mid- to late 20s if you’re a more conceptual creator (you have one big idea, and you’re going for it), and your mid-50s if you are a more experimental creator (you build on a creative concept over time through trial and error.) A more recent piece by the writer Amelia Abraham tracks different artists at different ages and explores their relationships to creativity; it’s worth the read.
Anecdotally, I have noticed a lot of my friends in their 30s being more creative than they were in their 20s, even if they’re not full-time artists or would consider themselves particularly creative. One of my best friends from high school quit her side hustle as a fitness instructor and has filled her time with dance classes. A newer friend spent her 20s pursuing a music career that she wasn’t really passionate about and then pivoted to painting, which she loves. As for me, this Substack has been an amazing outlet to jump-start my creativity, so I need to give you, the reader, a profound thank you for being here.
It can be tempting to think that as soon as you age out of the Forbes 30 Under 30 list, your creative pursuits and accomplishments don’t mean as much. This simply isn’t true. Creativity doesn’t have an age limit. And to be honest, early success can often mean taking (illegal) shortcuts to get there.
I met my younger self for coffee…
Yes, here’s the blog version of that trend. However, if I were to meet my 20-something self, I would say, “You’re still creative. You may not be writing as much right now, but your creativity is still shining through.” In my 20s, I started doing community theater. And on a much smaller scale, I got really into cooking and making delicious meals at home (mostly to save money.) Was I writing the Great American Novel? Not even close. But I was building the life around me that supported and encouraged my creativity.
A quote I love from a TEDx Talk by musical theater actor and influencer Cara Rose DiPietro is “Your art cannot exist without you in it.” When I was choosing a college program, I knew that a BFA in writing wasn’t going to do me any good because there were so many other things I wanted to study. How could I keep writing if I had nothing to write about? All the subjects I love writing about—my faith, traveling, food, literature, France, theater, pop culture—were interests I explored in my 20s that have fueled my creative writing in my 30s.
You may not be creating in the way you think you should be right now, but you are still creative. Keep filling your life with the fuel for your art. Creativity gets easier the more you practice it.
Even if the rest of the world never knows about it, you are creative. You are artistic. Your art is unique because it was made by YOU.
Keep creating.
Off My Bookshelf
This one’s pretty straightforward: I give my initial thoughts on a book I just finished. Also, there may be spoilers. Sorry.
Content warning: child abuse, narcissist parents, grooming, SA
The House of My Mother: A Daughter’s Quest for Freedom by Shari Franke: If you’ve been following this case at all, you already know this book is a heavy one. But its message is incredibly important, especially in the age when every life milestone—and those of our children—can be turned into a money-making opportunity.
A quick recap: Shari Franke is the eldest daughter of the Franke family, known online as 8 Passengers, who ran a mega successful family vlog channel from 2015–2022. In 2023, her mother Ruby and her life coach/affair partner Jodi Hildebrandt were arrested and eventually imprisoned for aggravated child abuse of Shari’s two youngest siblings.
Shari’s story is a warning for parents—and all adults—of what can happen when children are not protected and forced to make money for their families online. While there are laws and protections in place for child performers in professional settings (though there really need to be more), children of influencers do not currently have the same resources. I’m not telling you what to do as a parent, because I have zero qualifications to do so. But I will say this book made me really think about how much of my future kids’ information I will share online.
If you were holding out hope that this Substack was going to turn into a parenting blog one day, I’m not sorry to disappoint you.
I highly recommend the audiobook, read by Shari herself. It’s a brutal but necessary listen.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ - 4.5 stars
Thank you so much for reading! Let me know what other topics you’d like to see from me, and I will see you next time.
You expressed this ebb and flow through the ages very well.
As I approach my 64th birthday in a few days, I've been wrestling with finding a balance between image making and writing. I began drawing comics as a preschooler but I was pushed into writing as an outlet. (Music is a third but not as strong.) So I have this hybrid creativity that has been an ongoing internal conflict.... simply because I was allowed to write more years than draw or paint, I'm better at writing, but internally I want to do images yet I feel so inadequate in that and fear sets in that my image making isn't good enough...and you Know what that does to creativity!
And, I'm also staring into fading abilities as I age, I know it's possible I have limited years left of being able to handle art supplies, so that fear on top of fear creeps up. I really don't have any wisdom to give others except to embrace the gift of creativity and, well, as Pope Francis was famously quoted...."make a mess"! Go ahead and fail. Go ahead and write the worst you've ever written, draw or paint the worst, or whatever your creative gifts are....lower the expectations you have of your creativity just enough so you aren't afraid to make the mess, because in doing so, sometimes something unexpectedly joyful comes out of all that mess.
You know, we've forgotten, even among my generation, how the creatives before us didn't make masterpiece after masterpiece...ok, some maybe did...but the majority had piles of wadded up papers or painted over canvases, etc. So go ahead and mess up....we can't create anything that we feel is "worthy" if we hold back on creating. Go Create!
Now, um.....feel free to repeat that to me when I'm whining that I can't create anything "good enough". (smile)
Thanks for this post. Keep Going!
Ritagail b.