Finding Whimsy Through Grief

I think a lot of eldest daughters and Gen X women learned early that survival means carrying things quietly. Responsibilities. Obligations. Stress. Doing the "right" thing.

After a while, it becomes so normal, and you stop noticing the weight. It just looks like life. A backpack full of textbooks. An early 2000's laptop and battery pack. And now a weighted vest so your bones don't dissolve. Another thing slung over your shoulder while you keep moving.

I’m not shocked anymore when the next hard thing arrives. At this point, I almost expect it. Another wave. Another loss. Another rejection. Another season of treading water between life's chapters.

But some days the weight shifts differently. Some days it pulls you under for a minute.

There is a soft art to carrying sadness.

Lately, though, my coping mechanisms come with performance metrics. Turning my hobby into a business adds new pressures, like finding the right keywords, visual hooks, algorithms, and engagement. There is always someone popping up to remind you that you are doing it wrong, and their online course will unlock success.

Somehow, even whimsy started needing a content strategy.

At the same time, I’m grieving the end of a 29-year marriage and a layoff from a career that gave me purpose, structure, and a version of myself I understood. 

Putting my art and whimsical self up for sale is exposing new vulnerability and stress.

It’s one thing to make things quietly for comfort. It’s another to attach prices, metrics, and hopes to them. To watch numbers. To hope people connect with the thing you made or scroll past it between ads for protein powders and sourdough tutorials.

When your work is personal, rejection never feels entirely professional. It lands somewhere softer. Somewhere closer to the version of you that made strange little things to survive hard seasons in the first place.

Through my insomnia, I still think of new things to create. New embroidery patterns. Funny stickers. Weird little thrifted treasures that deserve a second life. My brain, against all odds, still reaches for whimsy.

I still want to celebrate the strange magic of a Gen X childhood, the freedom, the weirdness, the resilience of roller skating down the alley (sans helmet or pads) and riding my bike to buy a Slurpee with my babysitting money.

It didn’t break me. Somehow, it made me strong enough to survive hard things while remaining soft enough to create silly things. 

Maybe that’s what whimsy really is. Not childishness. Not avoidance. Just proof that some hopeful part of you survived. I will persevere, surrounded by delightful little art that makes me smile inside.