Back to work.

Same place, new mindset.

Earlier this week, we found ourselves somewhere in the middle of a lake at the base of the Appalachian mountains. My husband and I watched the sun begin to set behind the mountain ridge from a double kayak. The tree tops glowed, gold and green. We were grounded in the still water.

I had no idea what time it was. It didn’t matter. My body felt the weight of our quick decision to hike 6 miles, up 500 feet, to an overlook of this lake. My muscles were sore and my arms were swollen from the beating sun, but the crisp wind across my face and the cold lake water at my feet kept me alert. 

I didn’t want this moment to end. 

I’d be returning to work in just a few days. This trip marked the end of my sabbatical, the last hoorah before I’d return to my old life working a 9 to 5 in the middle of Manhattan where a sandwich costs $27.

Not only will I lose my free time for writing, painting, and Zelda, I’m also going back to the same industry and working at the same place I was at almost a year ago. When I told my uncle, his face contorted in confusion: “Why are you going back there?” 

During my time off, I realized it wasn’t the place or industry that was the problem, it was my mindset.

My identity and self-worth was tied to my success at work. Becoming a famous architect, like Frank Lloyd Wright, was my life’s purpose. This ideal lifestyle of being a visionary sculptor of living rooms, owning a thriving design practice supported by rich patrons, and being obsessed with buildings was rammed into my psyche by all of my professors.

It was a perfect dream, and I dedicated my life to making it come true. I put my work first before sleeping, eating, and my art. I had this dormant painting talent that emerged in the dimly lit garage where I took my first painting class.

My first painting from my first painting class. This was painted from a posed, live model.

I never made time to paint. What was the point? Painting wouldn’t bring me closer to becoming a starchitect.¹ But my energy started to fizzle after years of working at 150%. All the work tasks I said “yes” to (because I never said “no”) didn’t get done in time. The promotions I expected didn’t come as fast as I’d hoped. The seven licensing exams had more trick questions than I could handle. 

My dream started to crumble. Burnout emerged from the rubble in the form of bi-weekly migraines, a salty attitude, and the never-ending desire to nap. After 8 years of drawing stairs and toilets, I took a break from my architecture career. 

For the first few months, I was a vegetable. Slowly, I filled the rest of the year with creative explorations. I watched Kelly Wearstler unfold her interior design process in Masterclass. I took a painting class with my mom and learned how to be more free with my brushstrokes and exaggerate colors. I took an online writing course, which was the key that unlocked a door to a community of creatively inclined folk, just like me, AND it unlocked a new medium: creating with words.

Writing became a vehicle to share this journey of rediscovering my identity.

I realized I love painting portraits of people or objects. They express how I feel about that some one or some thing without words. It’s about listening and noticing the details. I’m not trying to make big statements, just observations. 

The act of painting and writing is selfish. I can paint and write whatever I please, for myself or as a gift to you. I control what I want to express, how long it takes, and the medium in which it comes out. I never had this kind of creative freedom as an architect, and I love it. The starchitect mindset is not my sole identity anymore, it’s just one of many creative outlets I pursue, and (for now) the only one I choose to exchange for money.

I create space for myself in the ever-expanding universe of the internet by publishing my paintings and writing online. I can design this space too, and be the architect of my own online home. I’m not bound by the law, physics, or developer capital to create whatever I want to create (like I would as an architect). 

On my first day back at work, I caught up with my boss over tea in his office, and watched him flick through a gallery of my sabbatical paintings. “Wow, you’re a renaissance woman.”

I’m back at a familiar place, but this is the beginning of a new journey.

The middle of the lake.

1. A starchitect is a famous or high-profile architect.