When life got loud, watercolour whispered back — and I listened.

May was the mental health month, and I started writing this blog in the month of May… but as a mom and mother of two teens of which one of them is graduating school... this block got finally published in June.🤣🤣..

There are moments in life when you feel like you’re in control — and then there are moments when your teenage child tells you they hate all the food you’ve ever cooked, the movers inform you that your favourite mug broke in transit, and you’re standing in a brand-new country, wondering if you remembered to pack your sanity. That’s pretty much how I landed into my most recent life chapter — mid-50s, raising two teenagers, running an art studio, and moving countries, all while trying to locate matching socks and my sense of identity. In the middle of that glorious chaos, the only thing that kept me from throwing a wet sponge at someone was... art. Specifically, watercolour. Soft, unpredictable, stubborn, occasionally messy — much like me and my children.

Watercolour wasn’t just my hobby. It became my lifeline. My safe place. My very patient, judgement-free therapist with zero hourly charges. When everything else felt like a tornado — emotionally, hormonally, logistically — painting gave me something to hold on to. There were days I sat in front of a blank page feeling like I was losing control of everything: my house, my kids’ moods, my own eyebrows. But then I’d dip my brush in colour and just start. Slowly, gently, stroke by stroke, I’d come back to myself. That paper didn’t care that my accent didn’t match the GPS lady in this new country. It didn’t ask me if the kids were adjusting. It just gave me space to be. To breathe. To make a mess and call it art.

Being a mother to teenagers is like living with two Wi-Fi-enabled mood swings. They need you. Then they don’t. Then they need you urgently to explain where their charger is, while simultaneously ignoring every piece of advice you’ve ever given them. In those moments — especially after a big life transition — your sense of self takes a bit of a beating. Art helped me find mine again. I could pour all of it — the frustration, the longing, the weird hormonal waves — into a flower, a tree, or a quiet abstract piece that didn’t scream back. It didn’t ask for perfection. It didn’t even ask for logic. It just asked me to show up.

Some days I cried while painting. Some days I laughed at how terrible my pineapple looked. Some days I just stared at the paper, wondering how a human could feel so many feelings while pretending to be fine at the school parent-teacher meeting. And yet — through every one of those days — watercolour held me. Gently, like a hug that didn’t ask questions.

Running an art studio while juggling the emotional Olympics of parenting and international relocation wasn’t always graceful. There were moments I taught a class while wondering if my gas bill was paid or whether my kid would talk to me that day. But my students — adults navigating their own invisible chaos — reminded me that I wasn’t alone. We’re all just trying to hold ourselves together with coffee, hope, and occasionally, a good round brush.

Art helped me stay anchored. Not because it fixed anything, but because it let me fall apart safely and put myself back together with colour. That’s what I want to share with every adult who walks into my studio, joins my workshops, or messages me saying, “I’m not creative, but…” Oh, please. If you’ve survived a 14-year-old’s existential meltdown about hair gel, you’re absolutely creative.

So no, this isn’t a tidy success story. It’s a messy, glorious, water-splattered truth about how painting — in the quiet corners of busy days — gave me room to feel like me again. A woman. A mother. A maker. Not just someone’s ride, someone’s teacher, someone’s crisis manager. But someone who creates. For no other reason than it feels good. And that, my friend, is everything.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have paint in my hair and a teen demanding to know why the Wi-Fi is “being weird.” Again.

With love, laughter, and very colourful coping mechanisms,
Arpita