Evolution, Third Spaces, and Letting Yourself Become

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about evolution, about reinvention, and about third spaces; about the beautiful, strange fact that a life can keep opening long after you were told it was supposed to be settled.

When I was a kid, I think a lot of us absorbed the same message: figure out what you want to do early, choose it once, and then stay in that lane forever. That idea felt enormous to me then, and honestly, it feels absurd to me now.

A life is not a single choice. A creative life especially refuses to sit still.

I built my art career in my forties, almost out of thin air. I had spent years loving art, studying artists, paying attention to how they shaped feeling into image, but I carried around an old sentence from childhood for far too long. An elementary school art teacher once told me, in effect, that art was not for me. Those moments can linger like splinters. You stop reaching for things because someone convinced you they belonged to another kind of person.

Eventually, I reached anyway.

Spite may have helped. I do have a rebellious streak when someone tells me I can’t do something.

Then life shifted again. The rise of AI art changed the atmosphere around digital work, and digital collage began to receive more suspicion from people who didn’t always understand the process behind it. So I evolved again. I reimagined my art career. That shift led me toward the Unbelongings, and to my delight, they’ve been met with so much love. Their reception has reminded me that creativity has seasons, and sometimes the next season is richer because you were willing to let the last one change.

I’m in my fifties now, and I want to say this clearly for anyone who needs to hear it: you are still allowed to become someone new. You are still allowed to discover the thing that fits. You are still allowed to surprise yourself.

That thought leads me straight to Boomerang Comedy Theater.

I started improv because my friend Jenn Ocken, from Butterr (amazing improv group, check them out!), suggested I try it. I assumed I’d take one class, have a good time, and move on. Instead, something in me woke up. It felt like I had wandered back into a room inside myself that had been closed for years.

I loved theater in high school. I loved performing. Somewhere along the way, I absorbed the idea that it wasn’t practical, wasn’t wise, wasn’t a real path, so I left it behind. Then I found improv, and all that old joy came rushing back with it.

This year, evolution kept going. I signed up for a stand-up class at the last minute after the writing class I wanted was canceled. I had no polished plan. I barely knew what I would talk about. Stand-up had never been on my life bingo card. Then I tried it and fell in love with it too.

That has been one of the sweetest surprises of this season of life: discovering that new doors still appear, and some of them open into versions of yourself you had quietly missed.

Boomerang Comedy Theater has become my third space, and that means a lot to me. Real third spaces feel rare now. So many places ask for your money, your silence, your efficiency, your ability to fit neatly into an existing shape. Boomerang has felt different. It welcomes the whole creative self. It invites participation, play, risk, and presence. You show up as a person there. You bring your voice. You bring your weirdness. You bring your unfinished ideas and your energy and your willingness to try.

That kind of space can change a life.

It has changed mine.

I’ve even been doing social media for my improv team, Something Else (amazing group of performers, check them out!), which has opened up yet another creative lane for me. It’s been fun, challenging, and energizing in ways I didn’t expect. That seems to be the theme lately. Follow your curiosity, and suddenly your life starts sprouting side doors.

When Boomerang learned they weren’t getting their lease renewed, I had a real wobble. I had just found this new source of joy, this place that felt electric and generous, and suddenly it looked fragile. I had one of those dramatic little internal spirals where you think, really? I just found the fun. Are we taking the fun away already?

Then, Boomerang found a new home. Bigger. Better. Full of possibility.

There it was again: evolution.

Change can feel like disruption while it’s happening. Later, it sometimes reveals itself as expansion.

That’s where I am right now. Thinking about the way a life keeps moving. Thinking about how many times we are allowed to begin again. Thinking about how art, performance, community, and courage keep finding each other in the most unexpected places.

So this is my gentle encouragement to you, and maybe a reminder to myself too: do not assume your life has already introduced you to all of your selves. There may be another version of you waiting just past the next class, the next risk, the next strange invitation, the next leap taken before you feel fully ready.

I’m grateful for the evolution that brought me here. I’m grateful for the Unbelongings. I’m grateful for Boomerang. I’m grateful for every creative turn that once looked unlikely and now feels essential.

Sometimes the next chapter arrives wearing a disguise. Sometimes it shows up as an art form you almost didn’t try, a stage you thought you’d outgrown, or a community space that reminds you who you are.

That feels worth paying attention to.

With all my love,

Loveday