The Spaces Between: Finding Myself in Saturday Stillness

It's a lazy Saturday morning in LA, just past 9 AM, and I'm exactly where I promised myself I'd be - doing absolutely nothing productive. I'm curled up in my window nook with bedhead, oversized tee, and the kind of peaceful emptiness in my schedule that used to make me anxious but now feels like the ultimate luxury.

Yesterday's studio session was wild - not because of what I created, but because of what I didn't. For maybe the first time ever, I sat with a half-finished piece and just... let it be unfinished. No panic. No late-night push to force it into completion. Just acceptance that some creations need to breathe before they can fully emerge.

There's something powerful happening in these in-between spaces - the moments where I'm not actively "becoming" or "growing" but just existing. Like the negative space in design that gives meaning to the whole composition.

I've spent so much time this week examining my growth, analyzing my evolution like it's a project with a deadline. But this morning, watching the Saturday light crawl across my floor, I'm realizing that constant self-analysis can be its own kind of mask. Sometimes the most authentic thing is to just be present without trying to extract a lesson from every moment.

Don't get me wrong - I'm still planning my Venice Beach people-watching expedition later. Creative wells don't fill themselves! But I'm approaching it differently. Not as research, not as productive inspiration-gathering, but simply as Mandy experiencing a Saturday.

Professor Chen would probably say something annoyingly wise about how maturity involves recognizing when to push forward and when to simply exist in the present. (I swear that woman lives rent-free in my head these days.)

The fashion designer in me wants to call this "conscious incompletion" - the art of leaving space for what's still emerging. Maybe that's the most profound shift happening right now - learning that growth isn't always visible, measurable, or Instagram-worthy. Sometimes it's happening in the quiet spaces between the big revelations.

For now, I'm embracing this Saturday stillness. My sketchbook is nearby, but so is my novel. Growth might happen today, or it might not. Either way, I'll be right here - present, imperfect, and perfectly okay with both.