Some messy metaphors about rivers and creativity 🌊

Hello, friend.

The other day, I went for a walk to the park near my house. It’s an old park with big majestic trees (one of which I got married under), and is home to one of the oldest cemeteries in Canada. It is bordered on two sides by our town; on one side by big empty meadows of tall grasses, and on one side by a small river. I like walking there because it’s one of those places where you can really feel history brushing up against you—for example, in the mid-1800s, there was a whisky still on the banks of the river here, and the home of the dude who owned the still is not far from my home today, which means I walk probably the same path that dude walked to get to the river. I just think that kinda thing is really neat.

Anyways the reason I went for this walk was because I had that feeling where there was so much in my brain that it felt like bursting. So down I wandered to the river, thinking that a sit by the peaceful, quietly flowing water would do me some good. What I found instead was a river teetering on the edge of overspilling its banks, flirting with the concept of a flood.

It wouldn’t be the first time we’d seen this river flood. In April 2023 after a particularly bad ice storm, the river rushed out of its channel and sunk almost the whole park (it spared the cemetery, or things woulda gotten messy).

The river was in no way close to repeating its 2023 actions, but you could still feel the power of the seasons rushing by, caught up in the water’s unusually fast currents: the snowmelt and the rain and the shedding of winter. A rush of energy and the sheer overwhelm of it all running full freshet. Nowhere to go but forward and out and bursting.

It wasn’t the calm and peace that I thought I needed, but it was a mirror to my own brain. As I write this, it’s been seven weeks since I was laid off. Seven weeks can feel like a long time, but considering how much my brain feels like it’s changing shape and rewiring itself, seven weeks also feels like no time at all, actually.

And the thing is, I kinda really want to stop talking about being laid off. Because it’s actually not the thing that matters. What matters is what’s come after: the shedding of winter, the unusually fast rushing of change, and—to push this metaphor to its absolute brink—my brain feeling like it’s melting (like snow on a warm spring day, or whatever).

Which is all to say that I haven’t felt this creative in years.

When I was in corporate, at the very peak of my burnout (circa February 2026 if I had to pinpoint a date), I still had this feeling—except it felt stuck somewhere in the back of my head, where it was growing and shifting and pushing on my eyeballs and giving me migraines. I wanted to do shit but was so fucking exhausted by the end of the day that that creativity had nowhere to go. It was like an overfilled balloon in my brain, all this potential slowly going fallow.

But now, that creativity is finding brooks and rivulets and streams outta my brain. My client work is actually fun, even the traditionally boring stuff like invoicing and writing proposals (am I insane) because it’s new and I get to make it my own. I’m exploring videography, something I’ve wanted to do for years and haven’t had the time. I’m even picking up some actual photography gigs, which is a total dream come true.

The fact that my creativity was so neglected while I was working was no one’s fault but my own. I’d love to blame my previous job but I’ve always struggled to not dedicate my entire being to work. I’d also love to offer the kinds of advice my therapist routinely offers me about how important it is to set boundaries and not let work take over, but that wouldn’t be genuine because, lol, I’ve historically failed at doing so.

But what I do know is that being able to explore those creative impulses—and even, holy shit, get paid for them!—on my own terms is so fucking cool, and something I’m only just starting to get a taste of. And damn, is it sweet.