Maybe they noticed. Maybe they didn’t. You’re not quite as productive. You’re not pulling as many late nights at the office. You’re not as career-driven. You’re not proposing as many new ideas as you used to.

Your boss or your friends or your peers or even your fans, maybe they wonder what happened to you. In fact, filmmaker Cameron Crowe was recently asked about this. According to David Marchese of The New York Times, “Simply put, the past few feature films he has made … failed to capture the magic of his earlier work.”

But it would be weird if this were not the case. Because as Crowe explained, the reason for the shift in his style and tone and output was simple: He had kids.

“It was different than waking up in the morning and writing all day long,” he explained of his creative life as a parent. “You have to parcel out the time you’re gonna do the work. So that’s one thing. But the other thing is, you see what’s truly important. I wanted to learn about that for a while and write with that in my heart.”

Of course! That should change a person. That should change their priorities. That should change their workload. That should change their style and their sensibility. It would be weirder if it didn’t.