I had not painted in months.
Not because I had stopped loving it. Not because I had decided I was finished. Life simply became full, and painting kept being pushed to the side.
There were new routines, a new job, the garden, tired evenings and all the ordinary things that quietly take up more space than we expect.
Then, one day, I picked up a brush.
I did not start a new masterpiece or arrive at the easel with a grand plan. I added a few small lavender flowers to a painting I had already begun.
That was it.
But it felt like something had opened again.
I think we sometimes make returning harder than it needs to be. We tell ourselves we need a free afternoon, a tidy studio, fresh inspiration and enough energy to create something worthwhile.
We wait until we feel completely ready.
But perhaps returning can be much smaller than that.
A brush in your hand.
One colour mixed.
A few marks on a canvas.
Ten minutes spent doing something that feels like you.
Painting has always been more than producing a finished picture for me. It gives my mind somewhere to rest. It allows me to become curious, playful and absorbed in what is directly in front of me.
And yet, even knowing that, I still drift away from it sometimes.
I am learning not to turn those gaps into evidence that I have failed or lost some important part of myself. Creativity does not disappear because we have been busy, tired or distracted.
It waits.
Sometimes patiently. Sometimes with a half-finished canvas sitting nearby, quietly reminding us that we can begin again whenever we are ready.
Those little lavender flowers did not finish the painting.
They did something better.
They helped me return.
And for now, that is enough.