The Website That Almost Wasn't
Four years, two babies, and a website that finally feels like me.
If you've ever tried to find Malin Creates online over the last four years and come up short. Hi, yes, that was intentional. Sort of.
Here's the honest story.
I took my website down shortly before my first son was born. The plan was simple, give it a refresh, relaunch in a couple of months, no big deal. The design didn't feel like me anymore, the copy felt even less like me (more on that in a second), and I wanted a clean slate. I had two months before my due date. Plenty of time.
He had other plans. He arrived early. Very early.
And life avalanched.
The kind of avalanche that doesn't really stop for a while. Two babies, a business to keep running solo, and the particular chaos that comes with building something while also just trying to get through the days. There were seasons in there that were really hard. Seasons where survival was enough.
The website? It stayed down. Of course it did.
I want to be honest about something else too. Back then I was genuinely lost about what I wanted my business to be. I was undercharging, underselling myself, and unclear about what kind of work I actually wanted to do. The website felt like a problem I'd get to when I figured that out. I never quite figured it out, so I never quite got to it.
My second son came last year, and I got 9 months of maternity leave, and trust me, I needed it. I was dealing with PPD and I needed time to just land. To recover. To remember who I was outside of surviving.
September came and I went back to work. I dreaded it and craved it in equal measure. But something had shifted. I had clarity I hadn't had before, about my work, my worth, what I wanted to build, who I wanted to build it for.
I started building the website in October. Between school runs and nap times and client projects it moved slowly. There were weeks it didn't move at all. But it moved. And now it's here.
I should mention (and this is silly), the original reason I pulled the site down was actually a bad copywriting experience. I'd hired someone to write my copy and it just wasn't right. Didn't sound like me, didn't say what I needed it to say, and it frustrated me enough to take the whole thing down in a huff. Looking back, that was maybe a slight overreaction. But also, it led to here. So.
Four years later, two kids richer, infinitely clearer about who I am and what I do, Malin Creates has a website again.
It's not perfect. But it feels like me. And after four years, that's everything.
Malin
