Creating Space: On Being a Queer Single Mom

Being a single mom is already a full, relentless universe. Being a queer single mom adds layers that are both deeply beautiful and, at times, quietly heavy.

I’m not alone in love, I have a partner, Evelyn, who holds me in quiet, steady ways but I am alone in the everyday work of raising a child.

There are days when I feel like I exist in between worlds, not fully reflected in the stories I grew up with, not always seen in the spaces I move through. I carry love that doesn’t always have a template. I build a family that doesn’t always have a clear map. And I do it while packing lunches, answering questions, holding boundaries, and trying to remember who I am beyond “mom.”

It can be isolating. It can be exhausting. It can also be profoundly creative.

Because when there’s no model, you invent one.

Creativity, for me, is not just something I do, it’s something that holds me together. It shows up in small, almost invisible ways: in the way I turn a chaotic afternoon into a drawing session on the kitchen table, in the zines I make at night, in the stories I make up at bedtime, in the handmade cards, the messy sketchbooks, the quiet act of choosing colors when everything inside feels loud.

There are moments when the weight of doing

everything alone presses in logistics, emotions, decisions, the constant mental load. And in those moments, creativity becomes a kind of breathing space. Not an escape, but a soft place to land.

When I draw, I slow down. When I write, I make sense of things that otherwise feel tangled. When I create with my child, something shifts, we meet each other in a space where there’s no pressure to be perfect, no expectations to perform. Just presence. And maybe that’s the real gift of it.

Creativity doesn’t solve the hard parts of being a single queer mom. It doesn’t make the systems more inclusive or the days less full. But it creates pockets of meaning. It reminds me that I am more than my responsibilities. It gives me a language when words are not enough.

It also quietly resists the idea that families like mine are “less than” or “unusual.” Through creativity, I get to tell our story on my own terms, not as something lacking, but as something deeply intentional, resilient, and full of love.

Some days, creativity looks like a finished piece. Other days, it’s five minutes of scribbling while dinner is cooking. Sometimes it’s just choosing to see beauty in a moment that could have easily passed unnoticed.

That’s enough.

If you’re in a similar place, navigating motherhood, identity, and the many invisible layers in between, I hope you find your own version of this space. It doesn’t have to be art in the traditional sense. It can be anything that brings you back to yourself.

Because even in the hardest moments, you deserve a place where you are not just surviving, but expressing, feeling, and creating.

And that, in itself, is a quiet kind of power.

Love, Micol