Back-To-School Supplies

Can we talk for a second about what it takes to create?
I have three minutes before I have to go to work. I'm in my Mom's garage cutting out foam-board letters with a cheap x-acto knife. Once I made 26 aprons with a sewing machine won from a bookstore fundraising auction. I was making the aprons for a nonprofit cafe.
One apron for every letter of the alphabet.
The sewing machine needed serious repair but I didn't have the money.
It would scream violently, shocking every cell in my body.
It took me several weeks, working several hours every day with a design I received from a woman in my community, with fabric donated from a women in my community.
When I was done the man who asked me to make them wanted to know if he could buy one to give away as a gift to a personal friend.
I told him they weren't for sale, they weren't for profit, they were for the nonprofit cafe.
He gave it to a friend.
There was $100 in cafe credit for me for working on this project.
When I brought my mother in for lunch one day they didn't have my name on record.
They didn't have any money in the system with my name attached to it like they did for other artists they were working in trade with and the person working the cafe didn't believe me.
So they called up the man who took the apron to give to a personal friend, that made the number of aprons to an odd 25, and they put me on the phone to prove he knew me, and then they let me and my mom order food salted with the tears I cried over for once again being used, not recognized, acknowledged, and then used.
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Can we talk for a second about what it takes to create?