It’s been more than six months since my last newsletter, after nearly a decade of showing up in your inbox every month without fail. I’ve thought about needing to write this every month but just never got it done. The honest explanation is this: I’ve been dealing with depression, and it took nearly everything I had just to get through each day. Writing to you fell off the list along with almost everything else that wasn’t strictly necessary.
I’ve written before about creative winters and burnout, and I named those things because I thought it might help someone else feel less alone. Depression took longer to name, even though I’d been through it once before, thirty years ago. It’s quieter than burnout and slowly takes things away from you before you even see what’s happening.
The studio was the first thing it took. Not because I decided to stop creating, but because creating requires a level of energy and interest that I simply didn’t have. And here’s the cruel part: I knew creating was exactly what would help me feel better. I’ve told you that for years. But depression takes the very motivation you need to do the thing that would help you, which is a special kind of catch-22. I couldn’t power through into a Creative Play session the way I’ve told you to do during a slump, because this wasn’t a slump.
So I gave myself grace instead of pressure. I let go of the idea that I had to keep working on my art, because I couldn’t, and that was okay. What I could do was buy a Tula Pink teapots-and-teacups quilt kit, bright and cheerful, with a pattern already laid out for me. No design decisions, no blank page, just following someone else’s plan and sewing. It gave me something to do with my hands and a small, real sense of finishing something, without asking my depleted brain to think. That, alongside therapy, medication, prioritizing my own wellness, and getting myself moving again, is what helped me climb back out.
I’m creating again now and exploring in ways I haven’t in a while — I’ve even started working in sculptural forms, which is brand new for me.
I was also able to come out of the darkness enough to accept a commission for an article in Art Quilting Studio and to actually get it done, which I am extremely proud of. If you want to read it, you’ll find it in the Autumn issue.
Thank you for your standing by as I swirled in the pit of despair!
