18 Months Without Painting. No Epiphany. No Comeback Arc. Just Silence!
People keep asking me when my next painting is coming.
I keep saying "soon."
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I'm a graphic designer who paints abstract emotions in line art and watercolor. Feelings are literally my medium. And right now? I'm sitting in front of a blank A3 sheet, feeling absolutely nothing worth putting down.
No dramatic breakdown. No profound reason. The spark left, and it didn't leave a note.
The last time I picked up a pencil, I forced myself. Actually sat there trying to manufacture pain. Because that's how I've always painted - from something real. Sadness. Depression. Joy. That dizzy feeling of being in love. Anything with weight.
But nothing came.
And that's the part nobody tells you about creative block. It's not always about being stuck. Sometimes it's about being empty. Not numb from too much feeling - just... numb. Like the signal got cut and you don't know where the wire broke.
Eighteen months is a long time to wait for a feeling.
Every day I wake up hoping today will be the day. That one feeling - any feeling - will show up and I'll know what to do with it. A year and a half of that hope. A year and a half of blank paper.
I even tried going toward the dark stuff. The heavy drawer I usually keep shut.
But I know myself. If I open that door, I won't come back from it quickly. So I leave it closed. And stay here — in this strange, flat middle ground.
I'm not completely unhappy. But I'm not okay in the way that feels solid either. There's a difference between living and just moving through days. Right now I know which one I'm doing.
My paintings have always been where my emotions went when words weren't enough. Tranquil Gaze, Beneath the Surface, Subtracted Identities, Fading Hope. Each one - a feeling I couldn't say out loud, translated into line and colour.
Right now I have no translation. The canvas stays white.
Everyone loves a comeback story. Artist loses it, finds it again, posts something raw, gets 10k likes. That's the arc we're sold.
It hasn't come. Not in eighteen months.
So instead of waiting for the epiphany, I'm writing about the silence. Because I think more of us live here than we admit — in that gap between who we were creatively and whoever we're becoming.
I don't have a resolution. I don't have a lesson. I just have this page. And today, that's enough
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