This post was inspired by the Creative by Nature podcast episode, It’s not too late! Reclaiming the creative parts of yourself you thought you lost. You can listen to the full episode by clicking here.
There are parts of yourself that you may believe you have lost.
The dreams you once had. The things you were curious about. The creative interests that made your eyes light up as a child. The parts of yourself that felt so natural before responsibilities, expectations, fear, and self-doubt slowly became louder.
But what if those parts of you were never actually gone?
What if they were simply waiting for you to come back for them?
“The creative parts of us don’t disappear. They wait.”
A few weeks ago, I started taking piano lessons. And the truth is, this story is not really about learning piano. It’s about what happens when you stop telling yourself it’s too late. It’s about the things you’ve always wanted to do, the parts of yourself you’ve always wanted to explore, and the creative dreams that quietly follow you throughout your life—the ones that never completely go away, even when years pass by.
For me, that thing was piano.
Growing up, both of my grandmothers played piano. I remember sitting beside my grandmother while she taught me Chopsticks and Hot Cross Buns, completely fascinated by the way music came alive beneath her fingers. My great-grandmother’s piano now sits in my own living room, and my mom’s mother had a player piano that I thought was the coolest thing as a child. Music was always around me, and yet I never moved beyond those first simple songs.
As I got older, I loved singing. I joined chorus throughout middle and high school, and I remember watching the students who could accompany the choir on piano. I admired them. I thought it was incredible that they could create music in that way, and somewhere inside of me, I wished I could do the same.
For a brief moment in college, I even considered becoming a music teacher. I sat down with my advisor and learned everything that path would require—voice lessons, piano lessons, instrument proficiency, music theory, performances, and an overwhelming amount of coursework. I walked out of that meeting and had my first panic attack.
Looking back now, I don’t think it was only about the workload. I think it was about self-doubt.
All I could see were the things I didn’t have. I didn’t play piano. I didn’t play multiple instruments. I wasn’t already where I thought I should be. And somewhere along the way, I convinced myself that I couldn’t do it.
So I left music behind.
Art became the path that felt possible, and I am incredibly grateful for that path. Being an art teacher shaped so much of who I am and eventually helped me understand creativity in a much bigger way than simply making something beautiful. It became a doorway into healing, self-expression, intuition, and coming home to myself.
But even while I followed that path, there were other parts of me quietly waiting.
The writer.
The singer.
The musician.
The dancer.
The intuitive.
The storyteller.
Over the last several years, especially after the loss of my mom, I began a healing journey that asked me to look at the beliefs and patterns I had carried for most of my life. I realized how much time I had spent focusing on what other people wanted from me, what would make them happy, and who I thought I needed to be.
I stopped asking myself a much more important question:
What do I want?
And as I began to heal, pieces of me started coming back online. I started writing again—not because I had to, but because I felt called to share my experiences and support others. I returned to singing. I deepened my relationship with my intuition and spiritual connection. I stopped trying to control every outcome in my artwork and allowed myself to create from trust, feeling, and expression.
Little by little, I started reclaiming parts of myself that I thought had disappeared.
Then this spring, something unexpected happened.
My daughter asked about taking piano lessons again, and around the same time, an opportunity appeared through someone in my circle who was offering lessons. I signed my daughter up, and shortly afterward, my husband and I were performing with our local choir when two retired music teachers performed a piano duet.
There was playfulness. There was joy. There was creativity. And as I watched them, something inside of me woke up.
I remember thinking, Jess, you have always wanted to play piano. It’s time.
It wasn’t a logical decision. It was one of those moments where your whole body knows before your mind catches up. It was a full-body yes—the kind of knowing I have learned to trust.
So I reached out to the piano teacher and asked if my daughter and I could take lessons back-to-back.
She said yes.
And when I sat down at the piano for my first lesson, something surprising happened.
I had fun.
Not because I was immediately good at it. Not because I discovered some hidden talent. I had fun because I was learning. I was solving problems. I was noticing patterns. I was engaging both my analytical and creative mind at the same time.
I was allowing myself to be a beginner.
And maybe that is one of the biggest things that keeps us from reclaiming the parts of ourselves we have abandoned. We have somehow learned that we need to be good at something before we are allowed to enjoy it. We believe there needs to be an outcome, an achievement, or a reason for pursuing it.
But what if joy was enough?
What if learning was enough?
What if you didn’t need to become exceptional at the thing you have always wanted to try?
When my piano teacher asked me what my goal was, I didn’t have a grand answer. I don’t need to perform. I don’t need a recital. I don’t need recognition.
I simply want to learn.
And there is something incredibly freeing about that.
What if success is finally saying yes to something you have been longing to do for years?
We often celebrate the stories of people who began later in life and achieved incredible things. But I think the deeper lesson is not that they became famous. The deeper lesson is that they gave themselves permission. Permission to begin. Permission to create. Permission to stop waiting for the perfect moment.
Because what if success isn’t becoming famous?
What if success is finally saying yes to something you have been longing to do for years?
What if success is taking the art class, signing up for the lessons, writing the story, learning the instrument, sharing your voice, or starting the business you’ve been quietly dreaming about?
What if success is simply refusing to abandon yourself any longer?
I think so many of us are carrying dreams we have labeled as impossible—not because they actually are impossible, but because somewhere along the way we decided we had missed our chance.
But what if you didn’t?
What if your dream is still waiting for you?
What if the creative part of you that you have been longing to reconnect with is still there, patiently waiting for you to say yes?
Because here is what I have learned: the creative parts of us do not disappear. They wait. They wait beneath the responsibilities, the fear, and the stories that tell us we are too old, too late, or not talented enough.
Every time you choose curiosity over fear, every time you follow what lights you up, every time you say yes to something that feels deeply aligned, you come a little closer to yourself.
Maybe reclaiming creativity is not about becoming someone new.
Maybe it is about remembering who you have always been.
So I want to leave you with this:
What is your piano?
What part of yourself is waiting for you to come back for it?
And what would happen if you gave yourself permission to begin anyway?
Listen to the Full Conversation
If this blog post resonated with you, you can listen to the full podcast episode:
It’s not too late: Reclaiming the creative parts of yourself you thought you lost.
What is the thing you’ve convinced yourself is too late?
What’s keeping you from trying something your heart wants to embrace?