How The Gifted Perspective Started
My reflection on being a gifted adult craving something more
8 years ago, I turned 31.
I had a two-year-old who was finally—FINALLY—sleeping through the night. For the first time in what felt like forever, I had something I’d been desperately missing:
Time.
After bedtime, my husband and I would head back downstairs. He’d dive into whatever project or activity he had lined up for the evening, while I…just sat there.
“Why don’t you do one of your hobbies?” he suggested one night.
The words hit me hard. Because the truth was, I no longer had hobbies.
It wasn’t just a lack of interest—it was a loss of identity. For as long as I could remember, I had defined myself by a wide range of activities. As a kid, I was always enrolled in multiple lessons and classes. In college, I went from intramural ice hockey to a pre-law fraternity. I loved not just trying new things, but learning about new things. And once I learned about them, I loved the thrill of trying them in new ways, of making twists, of finding new ways to dive deeper. That curiosity and energy had always been my spark.
And I know I’m not alone in this. Many gifted adults experience multipotentiality - the drive to explore a variety of interests. It can even become stressful when faced with the expectation to choose just one “specialization.”
But at 31, I didn’t feel like I had multiple potentials. I felt like I had no potential. Like I’d become a shell of my former self; simply going through the motions of life without the joy of discovery or the thrill of a new project.
It turns out, though, that emptiness was about to lead me somewhere new.
On the morning of my birthday, my husband lined up a row of white bankers boxes on the floor. Each was labeled with a number. The whole setup looked straight out of Deal or No Deal.
Inside each box? A hobby.
This was pre-ChatGPT, so he had done his own research and built little “starter kits” for me. The idea was simple: try them all, and see which one brought my spark back.
I opened a box to find painting supplies. Another held a book on gardening. One had a scrapbook (still blank to this day…turns out scrapbooking was not the answer). Another had a home décor item.
“Your hobby could be decorating our house!” he explained. Which sounded like a dream, but also extremely expensive.
Finally, I opened the last box. Inside was my laptop. I looked at him, confused, until he motioned for me to check the screen.
There it was: a brand-new blog page he had created for me.
“We can change the name, of course,” he added quickly.
With the other hobby kits scattered around me, I sat cross-legged on the living room floor, pulled my laptop onto my lap, and began typing.
At first, I wrote about motherhood. But soon, I realized what I really wanted to write about was teaching.
And that’s how this—The Gifted Perspective—was born. Over the years, it has changed names, expanded across platforms, and grown in ways I never could have imagined back when I was just a young mom craving a sliver of self.
If you’ve ever felt like you lost a piece of yourself, I hope my story reminds you that the spark can come back, sometimes in ways you never expect.