Creating in the Cracks: Motherhood, Art, and the Self I’m Still Becoming

There are days I forget what my voice sounds like when it’s not reading children’s books out loud. Mornings blur into afternoons, and I catch glimpses of myself in the mirror — hair unwashed, eyes tired, but somehow still holding a quiet fire. I am a mother now. But I’m also still an artist. A woman. A self I refuse to lose.

Balancing art and motherhood isn’t about achieving harmony; it’s about survival and small acts of rebellion. It’s writing a sentence while the baby naps, or sketching ideas in the notes app while nursing. It’s saying: I still exist, even when the world only sees you through the lens of motherhood.

Simone de Beauvoir once wrote, “One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman.” I feel that deeply now — how womanhood, like art, is something I’m always in the process of becoming. I became a mother, yes. But I didn’t stop becoming me. That’s where the tension lives. And the beauty.

Before my daughter was born, I had whole afternoons to write, think, and lose myself in creative flow. Now, creativity feels fragmented. It comes in flashes between diaper changes and daycare pickups. But I’ve learned to embrace the mess. My art no longer demands silence or solitude. It demands truth. And there’s nothing more raw and real than motherhood.

Sometimes I feel guilty. For wanting space. For needing solitude. For craving a part of myself that isn’t tied to anyone else’s needs. But then I remember Audre Lorde’s words: “Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare.”

I care for myself by making art. Even if it’s half-finished poems. Even if it’s jotting down thoughts with one hand while bouncing a baby with the other. These small acts are how I resist the idea that motherhood must consume me completely. These are the cracks where my voice still lives.

I don’t have it all figured out. Some days, I’m swallowed by fatigue and self-doubt. Other days, I feel a fierce clarity — that I am raising a child and still raising myself. That my daughter is watching me not just care, but create. And maybe that’s the most powerful lesson I can teach her.

So I write in the margins. I create without perfection. I mother with love, and I make space — however imperfect — for the woman who existed before and the one I’m still becoming.

This isn’t balance. It’s a kind of dance. And every time I choose to write, speak, or simply be — I reclaim my rhythm.