You can look around at your life and recognize that much of it is good.

And still hear a little voice saying:

Is there something else?

Then explore how easy it is to shut that voice down.

“I should be grateful.”

“I’m too old to start something.”

“Why can’t I just be satisfied?”

“Other people have real problems.”

Then make your argument:

Gratitude and desire are not opposites.

You can appreciate what has been and still be curious about what hasn’t happened yet.

You can love your family and want something that is yours.

You can value stability and still want adventure.

You can be grateful for who you’ve been and still wonder who else you might become.

Instead of asking:

“What should I do with the rest of my life?”

ask:

“What do I want more of right now?”

More me.
More creativity.
More possibility.
More space.

I created a mini free PDF if you want to explore this further.

You can find it HERE.

There is something almost intimidating about the word purpose.

Especially after 50.

We’re told this is our next chapter.

Our time.

The children are older. Careers may be changing. Responsibilities shift.

So naturally we’re supposed to know exactly what we want to do with all this possibility.

Except many women don’t.

Sometimes freedom doesn’t feel like freedom at first.

Sometimes it feels like standing in an empty room wondering what you’re supposed to put in it.

I know something about reinvention.

I’ve spent more than forty years creating clothing, working with textiles and color, building businesses, painting, stitching and making things with my hands.

Creativity has been my work.

But it has also been something else.

It’s been one of the ways I’ve found my way through change.

Recently I’ve been hand stitching a jacket.

Nobody asked me to make it.

There is no grand reason it needs to exist.

I simply wanted to make it.

And as I’ve sat there making tiny stitch after tiny stitch, I’ve been thinking about purpose.

Maybe we’re making it too complicated.

Maybe purpose doesn’t always announce itself.

Maybe sometimes it whispers:

Try that.

Wear this.

Go there.

Make something.

Learn that.

Call her.

Plant it.

Paint it.

And perhaps our job isn’t to understand where any of it is leading.

Perhaps our job is simply to notice.

We Become Very Good at Not Noticing Ourselves

Women spend decades becoming remarkably skilled at noticing everyone else.

What do the children need?

What does work need?

What needs to be bought?

Who needs help?

What’s for dinner?

What’s the sensible decision?

We can become so practiced at responding to the world around us that one day someone asks:

What do you want?

And we genuinely don’t know.

I don’t think that’s failure.

I think we’ve simply gotten out of practice.

And practice can return.

Start With Something Tiny

Don’t ask yourself what you want to do for the next twenty years.

Ask what you’d like to do Saturday afternoon.

Don’t decide whether you’re an artist.

Buy the paint.

Don’t reinvent your wardrobe.

Notice which color makes you smile.

Don’t decide whether you should become a gardener.

Plant one thing.

Follow something small enough that you don’t have time to talk yourself out of it.

Then see what happens.

Because maybe the goal isn’t to uncover some fully formed woman who’s been hiding underneath everything.

Maybe you’re allowed to become someone you haven’t met yet.

That’s the possibility I find exciting about this stage of life.

We don’t have to find ourselves.

We can create ourselves back into our lives.

One color.

One curiosity.

One tiny stitch at a time.

There is a strange thing that can happen when life finally gets a little quieter.

You spend years wishing for more time.

More time to yourself.

More time to make things.

More time to think.

More time when nobody is asking you a question, needing a ride, waiting for dinner, calling with a problem, depending on you to remember something, fix something or take care of something.

And then, eventually, some of that time arrives.

And you don’t necessarily know what to do with it.

I’ve been thinking about that lately.

I think so much of a woman’s identity can become wrapped around being needed that we don’t even realize it’s happening.

We become mothers, partners, daughters, caregivers, business owners, employees, problem solvers and keepers of all the things nobody else seems to remember.

There can be tremendous love in those roles.

But there can also come a point when they don’t require quite as much of us.

The children grow up.

Parents are no longer here.

Work changes.

Relationships change.

Life changes.

And suddenly there is this little pocket of space where all that responsibility used to live.

We think we’re supposed to feel free.

Sometimes we just feel lost.

The question I stopped knowing how to answer

For much of my adult life, I’ve made things.

I’ve designed clothing for more than 40 years. I’ve worked with color and fabric. I’ve painted and stitched and dyed and created.

Making things is as natural to me as almost anything I do.

But here’s what I’ve realized.

Even creativity can become another way of being useful.

You make the collection because it needs to sell.

You make the painting because you’re preparing for something.

You create the photograph because you need content.

You make the video because it’s Tuesday and YouTube would apparently like another video.

Suddenly even the thing you love has a job.

And I started wondering:

What happens when we do something that doesn’t need to become anything?

That’s a surprisingly uncomfortable question.

Because after decades of being useful, usefulness can feel almost like a requirement for deserving our time.

We ask:

What is this for?

What will I do with it?

Am I any good at it?

Could I sell it?

Is this worth my time?

Maybe those are the wrong questions.

What if you don’t need another purpose?

There’s so much messaging directed toward women at this stage of life about finding our “next chapter.”

Reinvent yourself.

Find your purpose.

Start the business.

Make the plan.

Become the new you.

But lately I’ve been wondering if that’s just another assignment.

Maybe after decades of knowing what needs to happen next, we don’t need another five-year plan.

Maybe we need some room not to know.

And instead of asking the enormous question:

What do I want to do with the rest of my life?

Maybe we could ask:

What am I curious about today?

That question feels completely different to me.

Curiosity doesn’t require a plan.

It doesn’t even require an explanation.

Maybe you keep stopping to look at gardens.

Maybe you’re suddenly drawn to orange when you’ve worn black for twenty years.

Maybe you want to paint.

Maybe you want to learn Italian.

Maybe you want to make a quilt.

Maybe you want to wear something wildly inappropriate according to some imaginary rule about how women our age are supposed to dress.

Maybe you want to spend an afternoon rearranging your house.

None of these things need to become your purpose.

They can simply be clues.

I think we need more things that lead nowhere

That’s probably a terrible business philosophy.

But it might be a very good life philosophy.

I think we need things that don’t become products.

Things we aren’t trying to master.

Things nobody is going to grade.

Things that won’t improve our résumés, grow our businesses or make us more productive.

Things we do because something inside us says:

That looks interesting.

And then we follow it.

I think creativity can be especially powerful here.

Not because everyone needs to become an artist.

Creativity is much bigger than art.

It can be choosing what to wear.

Growing something.

Cooking.

Painting a wall.

Putting flowers on the table.

Stitching.

Writing.

Dancing badly in the kitchen.

Combining two colors because seeing them together makes you ridiculously happy.

Creativity is allowing yourself to affect the world around you rather than simply responding to it.

And maybe that’s why making things can matter so much during times of change.

Sometimes we don’t create because there’s something we need to make.

Sometimes we create because making helps us hear ourselves again.

Maybe you aren’t supposed to go back

When women tell me they don’t feel like themselves anymore, there’s often an assumption hidden inside that sentence.

Somewhere there is a former version of me that I need to recover.

But I’m beginning to question that.

Why would we expect to be the same women we were twenty or thirty years ago?

We’ve lived since then.

We’ve loved people.

We’ve lost people.

We’ve made mistakes.

We’ve changed our minds.

We’ve survived things we didn’t know we’d have to survive.

We’ve learned.

We’ve become more complicated.

Maybe the goal isn’t to find our way back.

Maybe there is no “back.”

Maybe this quieter space is giving us an opportunity to notice who is trying to emerge now.

Not through a dramatic reinvention.

Through little things.

A color.

A curiosity.

A desire.

A piece of fabric.

A garden.

A book.

An afternoon spent making something completely unnecessary.

Tiny acts of attention that say:

I’m still here.

One question for this week

So I’m not going to give you a list of seven ways to rediscover yourself.

I’m going to give you one question.

What are you curious about right now?

Not what should you be doing.

Not what would be good for you.

Not what could you accomplish.

What keeps catching your attention?

And before you dismiss it because it’s silly, impractical, expensive, strange, pointless or “not you”...

just notice it.

You don’t have to do anything about it yet.

Maybe that’s enough for now.

Because perhaps this chapter isn’t asking us to immediately figure out who we are.

Maybe it’s asking us to become curious about ourselves again.

I don’t think we have to find the women we used to be.

I think we get to participate in creating the women we’re becoming.

And I find that far more interesting.

For most of my life, I believed creativity lived in a studio.

It lived in paints and fabrics. In sketchbooks and journals. In finished quilts, woven pieces, and colorful garments.

Creativity was something I did.

Or so I thought.

The older I get, the more I realize creativity was never confined to a paintbrush or a sewing machine.

It has always been about the way we choose to live.

That realization changed everything.

For years I chased finished projects. I measured success by what I had completed, what I had accomplished, what I could hold in my hands and say, “I made this.”

There is nothing wrong with making beautiful things.

But somewhere along the way, I began to notice that the moments changing me most weren’t always happening while I was creating art.

They were happening while I was paying attention.

The first cup of coffee in my favorite handmade mug.

Morning light spilling across my worktable.

The decision to wear a bright turquoise scarf instead of the safe gray sweater.

Fresh flowers gathered for no reason other than they made me smile.

Painting for twenty minutes without wondering if anyone would ever see it.

These moments weren’t productive.

They didn’t earn me anything.

Yet they quietly transformed the way I experienced my life.

I think many of us have confused creativity with productivity.

Productivity asks:

“What did you accomplish today?”

Creativity asks:

“Did you notice today?”

Did you notice the colors around you?

Did you notice what made your shoulders relax?

Did you notice the song that made you stop and smile?

Did you notice yourself?

Somewhere between raising families, building careers, caring for parents, meeting deadlines, and checking things off endless lists, many women become experts at managing life.

We become dependable.

Efficient.

Responsible.

We learn to make things work.

But in all that managing, we often stop expressing ourselves.

We stop wearing the clothes we truly love because they feel “too much.”

We stop buying flowers because they’re “not practical.”

We stop making art because it isn’t productive.

We stop noticing beauty because we’re too busy getting through the day.

Then one day we wonder why we feel disconnected.

Maybe the answer isn’t that we’ve lost ourselves.

Maybe we’ve simply stopped making room for the parts of us that feel most alive.

That is why I created Lived Creativity.

Not to teach you how to paint.

Not to convince you to become an artist.

But to explore the idea that creativity is available to all of us, every single day.

It’s found in how we dress.

How we decorate our homes.

How we prepare a meal.

How we arrange flowers.

How we choose color.

How we make time to write in a journal.

How we sit quietly with a cup of tea instead of rushing into the next task.

These are not little things.

They are the threads that weave together a meaningful life.

This is also why color has become such an important part of my work.

I’ve watched women put on a color that suddenly made them stand taller.

I’ve seen faces brighten before they ever looked in a mirror.

Nothing about their circumstances had changed.

But something inside them had awakened.

Color has a remarkable way of helping us remember ourselves.

Not because one color is universally better than another.

But because the colors we’re drawn to often reflect what our hearts already know.

That’s the beginning of what I call Soul Color.

It’s not about following fashion rules.

It’s about paying attention to what feels deeply true.

Throughout this publication, we’ll explore that together.

We’ll talk about creativity.

We’ll talk about clothing.

We’ll talk about color, beauty, aging, identity, slow living, gardens, journals, art, and the quiet practices that help us come home to ourselves.

Not because they’re separate subjects.

Because they’re all connected.

My hope is that every week you’ll leave here with one small idea to carry into your own life.

Not another thing to accomplish.

Just one invitation to notice.

Because I don’t believe a meaningful life is built through dramatic reinventions.

I think it’s built through hundreds of tiny choices.

The colorful sweater.

The paintbrush waiting on the table.

The flowers in a mason jar.

The beautiful mug.

The quiet walk.

The journal page.

The moment you decide that today is worth experiencing instead of simply surviving.

That’s what Lived Creativity is about.

Not making a perfect life.

Creating one that feels unmistakably like your own.

Before You Go

Notice: What is one beautiful thing you’ve walked past every day without really seeing?

Practice: Choose one small act of creativity this week that serves no purpose except bringing you joy.

Reflect: When do you feel most like yourself?

Discover: If you’re curious about the role color plays in your life, I’d love to invite you to take the free Soul Color Quiz. It offers a gentle place to begin reconnecting with yourself through color, creativity, and everyday practice.

No crisis. No announcement. No one looked at me and said, “You’ve lost yourself.”

It happened quietly.

One practical decision at a time.

I wore what was easy instead of what made me feel alive.

I stopped making art because there were more important things to do.

I told myself I would get back to the things I loved “when life settled down.”

Years have a way of passing like that.

One day you look around and realize you’ve become incredibly good at taking care of everyone else while forgetting the woman who once felt curious, expressive, and unmistakably herself.

I don’t think this only happens to me.

I think it happens to many women.

We become who everyone needs us to be. We become efficient. Responsible. Dependable. Invisible.

Not because anyone asked us to disappear.

But because little by little, we stop asking ourselves what lights us up.

For me, the path back wasn’t a grand reinvention.

It began with color.

Not because color magically fixes your life.

Because color has a way of revealing what words sometimes can’t.

When I reached for turquoise again, I remembered the adventurous part of myself.

When I painted with vibrant blues and corals, I felt my energy return.

When I stopped saving my favorite clothes for “special occasions,” ordinary Tuesdays began to feel different.

Those choices weren’t superficial.

They were signals.

Tiny acts of remembering.

That realization became what I now call Soul Color.

To me, Soul Color isn’t about finding the “right” palette or following fashion rules.

It’s about noticing what you’re naturally drawn toward.

It’s about expressing who you already are instead of hiding behind who you think you’re supposed to be.

It’s about living with intention through what you wear, what you create, and the small practices that help you come home to yourself.

That’s why I believe in three simple pillars:

Wear. Choose clothing that reflects the woman you’re becoming, not just the life you’ve been managing.

Art. Create something. Paint. Stitch. Journal. Doodle. Not because you’re trying to be an artist, but because creativity reminds us that we’re still alive.

Practice. Build tiny rituals that help you notice yourself again. A colorful mug in the morning. A walk. A journal page. A moment of stillness before the day carries you away.

None of these things will change your life overnight.

But together, they begin to change the way you experience your life.

If you’ve been feeling like something doesn’t fit anymore, maybe it isn’t because you’ve lost yourself.

Maybe it’s because you’ve outgrown an older version of yourself.

And perhaps that quiet feeling you’ve been carrying isn’t a sign that something is wrong.

Perhaps it’s an invitation.

An invitation to remember.

An invitation to choose yourself again.

An invitation to live in your own Soul Color.

If this resonates with you, I’d love to invite you to take my free Soul Color Quiz. It will help you discover the color archetype that reflects this season of your life and offer a gentle place to begin reconnecting with yourself.

Take the color quiz

Because sometimes the journey home begins with something as simple as the color you’re drawn to today