Whimsy Has Been Under Construction: Creative burnout recovery

So. Real Talk Time...

Apparently I have not written a blog update since January. It is now May, which feels fake, rude, and unfortunately accurate.

A lot has happened in the months between then and now, and I have not known how to explain it. Every time I tried to sit down and make sense of where I have been, my brain did the mental equivalent of dropping an armful of teacups down the stairs.

I was not just busy. Not just tired. But in the thickest fog I have ever experienced.

Not gone, nor done. Not void of ideas. But fogged in so thickly that the familiar pieces of my own life started feeling like they were foreign.

My body has been doing the nonsense. My grief has been louder than the Queen of Hearts. My nervous system has been dragging old ghosts out of storage. The world has been on fire. And somehow, through all of that, I kept expecting myself to just... keep posting? Keep creating? Booking? Keep showing up with glitter and a business plan?

This, quite frankly, was a bit much to ask of one nervous system.

Hope is on the horizon. I can see the lighthouse blinking in the distance. But I am not magically fine for seeing the fog. I am still in the thick of it. But I CAN just about see that there might be an edge to it.

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My Body Has Been Doing The Nonsense

Back in December, I had my gallbladder removed, and recovery has not been as simple as "procedure done, body fixed, carry on."

Since then, I have struggled with appetite and food in general, a lot of acid reflux, and frequent nausea—especially in the mornings. Some weeks, I am retching or getting sick twice if not more. Eating has now become complicated. Planning has become complicated. Leaving the house, working events... complicated. Apparently bodies get very committed to the nonsense bit.

Because Alphanie Artistry is not just a business run from a screen, my body matters in very practical ways that many don't consider when thinking "face painter."

I need to be able to pack, set up—including weights, canopy, tables... it's a lot. I need to be able to paint, talk, smile, clean, and then have the energy to still break it all down AND make the drive home, recover, and then somehow do it all again. I LOVE what I do. I love bringing whimsy into real spaces. I love being the odd booth where people can come get painted, glittered, tattooed, charmed, or simply be reminded that unbridled joy is allowed.

If you are new here, Alphanie Artistry is my little Looking-Glass corner of the world, where face painting, temporary tattoos, and handmade goods combine into whimsical connection.

Love, however, does not erase the limits of a body that is struggling.

The first few gigs of the year were really rough. Some were complete busts—all the physical demands of setup and breakdown to not break even for gas. I had trouble putting events on the books. I had to back out of a few because of my health—both mental and physical. My posts slowed down immensely. My creative rhythm, both personal and professional, became harder and harder to grasp.

And then, as the universe does when we fall through the Looking Glass... the universe said "here's your own game of chess".... So April and May arrived

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April and May come with Ghosts.

This time of year has always been hard on my nervous system.

April and May carry things my body remembers before my mind even has time to recognize it. This is the season connected to major childhood trauma. It is also when I lost my Bugg-a-Boo—he was my cat I had for 26 years, born in my dresser.

It's the time of year I experienced my first medical trauma—a kidney stone that wasn't diagnosed for 4 months.

Then May 2nd is the anniversary of my father's passing.

So while I was trying to keep moving, trying to heal from surgery, trying to accommodate a new GI system, trying to work, trying to manage a new POTS diagnosis, trying to book events, be a business owner, a parent, my own person... well my nervous system melted down.

My calendar does not always hold dates. Sometimes it holds ghosts of years past. Sometimes it holds anniversaries that walk in quietly and sit beside me before I even realize they have entered the room.

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Then There's the World at Large on Fire.

Then there is this larger cloud around my fog.

It has not just been my own health or grief. Not just depression, burnout, or all the other bull that's happened inside my circle. It has been the state of the world.

I do not mean that in a vague "times are hard" way.

I mean that the country I understood before Trump took office feels almost unrecognizable now. I am trying to exist as a woman, as someone in the LGBTQ+ community, as a parent raising smart, compassionate, curious kids, and as an artist who believes deeply in diversity, equality, and human dignity.

For everyone. Full Stop. Regardless of ability, sexuality, gender, race, religion or lack thereof, nationality, language, or whatever other imaginary barriers that way too many years have developed.

It is hard to wake up every day and watch people be treated like threats for wanting safety, dignity, and a better life. It is hard to see trans and nonbinary folx targeted more and more openly. It is hard to tell my children that truth matters, kindness matters, and people matter, while the people with power continue to set cruelty as policy.

That does something to a person. No. Society at large.

It does something to your body. To your ability to create, answer emails, fold laundry, cook dinner, and act like things are business as usual.

This. Is. Not. Normal.

Here in North Carolina, that heaviness has its own shape. Our schools are struggling. Our teachers are exhausted. The systems meant to support children keep asking families, educators, and communities already tight, to go thinner and thinner.

We are bordering on 2D...

The education I grew up with was flawed, a lot... But now? From where I stand it is something that has deteriorated into a nearly unrecognizable shape. Teacher friends see it too. Parents see it. Kids feel it, even when they lack the language to describe it yet.

I feel that as a parent, as a creative, as someone who wants my kids to grow up with wonder, not worksheets. Questions, not compliance at all costs. With stories, colors, books, experiments, safe adults, and room to become.

Do not mistake my whimsy for denial.

My whimsy is not me looking away from the atrocities being committed. My whimsy is me refusing to let these horrors have the last word.

When I can, I fight back by putting one foot in front of the other. Speaking out when I have the capacity. By showing up to community events. Supporting spaces where people are allowed to be fully, safely, weirdly, beautifully themselves.

Honestly? That's what I want Alphanie Artistry to be. Not just face paint or glitter. A small, colorful place where people can breathe for a second. Where softness is protected. Where kids can be curious. Where queer joy gets to exist out loud. A place imagination is treated like something worth defending.

So when I say I have been in a fog, I do not mean only in

ternally.

Some was fog... but there is also smoke mixed in.

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Waking up Beyond The Looking Glass

The best way I could describe the mental fog would be that it has felt like waking up on the other side of The Looking Glass.

My energy felt off, but I could not for the life of me pinpoint exactly how. It was as if the rules I had come to know were physically somewhere, but not in a place easy to find, and once found it was in a different language. Moving through a world that looked all too familiar on the surface, yet somehow had come to operate according to rules I couldn't put my finger on.

The rules may not have actually changed. Maybe they were always there. However, for whatever the reason, I could no longer recognize my own systems.

Finally, something shifted. I had a recognition that the fog was not just internal. I had been treating my exhaustion like a personal and moral failing (any other millennials feel this?), when really I was trying to function inside overlapping storms. My body in recovery mode, grief that feels stifling, my country unstable, my state failing my children, my business needing my attention, family needs, all the while my nervous system was trudging through old storage for ghosts, and there I was wondering why I couldn't simply "get it together."

Simple things became confusing. Posting became damn near impossible. Creating was the same. Sharing, finding any sort of connection was out of my grasp even while trying. I realized recently that since January, I have only completed a single project: a skirt. While I am incredibly proud of the skirt I made, seeing it be the only project in my journal checked off helped me understand just how quiet my creative world has become.

Not because I stopped caring, nor that the ideas were gone. But because there was a fog with a brick wall hidden between me and the doorway.

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Turns out, You Cannot, in fact, Out-Stubborn a Wall

For months I felt like if I didn't push, I wasn't worthy.

I thought I needed to outwork the grief, outpace the nausea, outrun the fear, out-organize my chaos, out-create my depression, and all the while somehow keep building a bright little booth of whimsy while the world outside feels increasingly unstable.

I kept telling myself to just do the thing. The next thing. Just post. Just clean. Just sew. Just plan. Just book. Just... get back to some semblance of the short-lived normalcy I had come to get comfortable in.

Now I am coming to the edge of understanding that I was not pushing through resistance. I was pushing through a brick wall. All I was doing was exhausting myself.

That realization is painful, but necessary. If you think the problem is laziness, you shame yourself. If the problem is discipline, you punish yourself. If it's failure, you repeat the cycle.

However, once the fog is identified, you can then, even if slowly, work your way out of it.

You do not attack the fog. You have to notice it. Name it. Move within it gently so as not to injure yourself or others in the fog. But eventually, you will see that faint lighthouse. An edge to the stifling fog.

That is where I am now, and I am proud. Proud to have finally noticed the fog around me.

Whimsy has been Under Construction

That is the phrase that keeps cycling around in me.

Whimsy has been under construction. Not abandoned, not demolished, not packed away forever. Just getting upgrades.

There have been cones around the glitter. Scaffolding around my weapon of choice—imagination. The part of me that usually knows how to turn pain into color, oddness into play—the door is open, the sign reads "pardon the dust."

This matters because whimsy is not the same as pretending things are fine.

Whimsy is not denial. Whimsy is not pretending the world is safe when it clearly is not.

Whimsy is not looking away from the hard things and saying "I am done."

Sometimes whimsy is how we survive the hallway of doors. Sometimes it is the lantern we carry while still afraid. It can be the tiny painted door behind a curtain, there to remind us there may be another way through.

Sometimes whimsy is resistance.

Sometimes it is how we keep children curious in a world that wants them numb. Sometimes it can be how we remind ourselves that softness is not weakness, imagination is not frivolous, and joy is not a distraction from survival but a necessity.

Joy is why we survive.

For me, returning to whimsy does not mean forcing myself to be cheerful. It means returning to creation with slow, honest tenderness.

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What I am building back

I want to return to consistency in creation. Both personally and professionally.

I want to create a cleaner, calmer environment for my family; to make art again; to make media; book events; make connections... I am desperate to share what I am building and want people back into my world of Alphanie Artistry.

I am also trying to shift how I relate to my body. I do not want to feel exhausted by my body anymore. I am ready to feel thankful for it, even when it's complicated and needy. Even when it slows down.

I am working to stop revisiting old mentalities that keep me bound, telling me my own worth is measured by my production, even though that is NOT true of any person.

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The Lighthouse is Lit

If you have been in your own fog lately, I hope this reaches you like a lighthouse.

A steady little signal that says you are not the only one moving slowly. You are not the only one who has lost their rhythm for a while. There are others trying to find their way back to creativity, to work, to body, to home, to people, or to self.

It is not weakness to affect the world around you—it is proof of life.

We are living through heavy things—such as personal grief, political outrage, bodily struggles, familial trouble, systemic issues. Some days, just continuing to care is work.

I may not be out of the fog yet, but I see the edge now. That feels like hope.

If you are also experiencing burnout—especially neurodivergent or autistic—but even as a parent, a spoonie creative, queer artist, overwhelmed entrepreneur, exhausted teacher, worried caregiver, or just someone trying to stay tender in a world that rewards hardness and exhaustion, I hope this finds you.

If this made you feel seen and you would like to connect, comment, email, or shoot a social media message. I would love to hear from others.

The path winds ahead, though for the fog I cannot see it. However, the lighthouse is lit. Somewhere beyond the edge of this fog, the whimsy still lives.