For a while, I thought I had lost my ability to create. At least that's what it felt like. I kept revisiting the language around my work, reconsidering my services, refining the way I presented what I did, and trying to understand why something I had spent years doing no longer seemed to move when I pushed it forward. I could see the list of things that needed to be done mounting. I knew how to do the work, and I knew I could do it well. I simply couldn't find the energy I needed to put the work into action.

Without a creative practice, strategy becomes reactive and creative direction collapses into aesthetic preference. The work still gets done, but from a shallower place.

For a long time, I thought I had finally found my footing. My career felt like it had reached a pivotal point, one I had worked years to achieve. I wasn't chasing titles for the sake of titles, nor was I trying to prove that I belonged in the room. I simply loved what I did. I loved solving problems, building ideas into something people could experience, and creating systems that made other people's work and lives easier. I loved watching someone understand something because of a training, a presentation, or a story I had carefully crafted. There was purpose in my work, and I felt fortunate to have found it.