Do it messy

It’s 3 am. Another early morning feeding. I have my 8-week-old son draped across my chest, heaving milk-drink little sighs. He tends to sleep better if I let him lie on me for a bit after nursing before setting him down in the bassinet. I do what has become my routine for these midnight hours—I open my phone one-handed and start browsing.

Scrolling through my email, I see a reminder from Claire to submit my details for Company of a Two by Thursday. My heart does a little double skip as I glance at the words next to the subject line of my reply: DRAFT.

Shit, I think. I’d written out my entire response the night before (during another 3 am feeding) then forgot to send it on. It’s Thursday now, albeit early, but Britain is 8 hours ahead of me.

I open the draft frantically, quickly typing out a post-script apology for the delay. My phone glitches and half of the text becomes invisible against the dark mode backdrop. What the hell? I copy the message into my notes app then re-paste it into the email. The text is visible again, though the format looks weird. I try to exit out but accidentally hit send in the process. Oh well, at least the text was all there. Then I realize that I forgot to attach my image or the recording of how to pronounce my name. If my hands weren’t holding a baby, I would face palm. I start another email reply to the thread, but can’t get the voice memo to embed in it. Opening Instagram, finding Claire’s profile, sending a quick voice recording, I tack on the text “Sorry for the multiple messages!”

At this point, I’m feeling the heat-flushed burn of foolishness in my chest. I feel silly, unprofessional, annoyed that I forgot to finish the email properly during the daylight hours. My sleep-deprived mind starts spiraling, thinking of any and all other times that I’ve tried to do something creative business-related and failed. Why can’t I ever just get this right? I think.

I pause and check myself. Get it right? What does that even mean? Was I really berating myself for mixing up an email that I was submitting two months postpartum to a site centered around the humanness of motherhood and creativity?

I’ve often bought into the narrative that to be successful, I have to be serious. That being human and having human mess—making mistakes, indecision, trying something then changing my mind—will prevent me from being perceived as a “professional” artist and writer. It’s ironic, considering that creatives have often been given a pass by society for their eccentricities. We’re allowed to be weird and chaotic. It goes with the territory.

Part of this urge probably stems from the fact that I don’t make any money off of what I create. My projects are passions, vocations, an expression of my soul. I pour a ton of work and time into them, but since they don’t earn me an income, I feel like I have to adopt a veneer of professionalism to prove that they’re more than just hobbies.

Somewhere in the rise of social media and the attention economy, identity became a commodity. We’re told that to market our art online, we also have to market ourselves. We package our hearts into little squares and 9x16 slices of content to be consumed in a two-second scroll. The ability to build a business with nothing more than our phones turned messy, chaotic creatives into CEOs overnight. And somehow, the corporate narrative of professionalism seeped into our space. You’re not allowed to be a messy, eccentric artist when you’re also playing the role of marketer, sales rep, operations manager, and executive director.

Often times for me, this perceived pressure to come across as professional has stopped me from taking actual steps forward in my goals as an artist and writer. I feel like I have to have everything figured out ahead of time, to have a business model and a clear personal brand in place, because learning along the way is too human of me. But the more I try and force myself into the glossy box of put-togetherness, the less room I have to breathe and learn what actually works for me and my lifestyle. I need experimentation to be able to grow.

(If you’re interested in reading more on the topic of online marketing and personal brands, I highly recommend this article from

Sarah Shotts

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I'm not a brand. I'm a human. 🫀

It takes a lot of vulnerability to let yourself be messy where others can see you. Our culture tends to glorify tidiness and treats it as a mark of moral superiority. Being seen as put-together gives others a confidence and respect in your abilities. We think, they look like they know what they’re doing, I can trust them. But this isn’t necessarily true when it comes to creative pursuits—my ability to send an email on time has nothing to do with my ability to make meaningful art.

What if there was another way? What if we reclaimed the mess, the eccentricity, the loving madness that comes from pursing something with single-minded determination whose only value is how much it makes us feel?

What if we let ourselves and our art be human again?