Oh look honey, a crappity-whine-snit!
Do you ever feel like you're scrambling and staying in one place all at the same time? I can't seem to get motivated to write because I don't have any new stories to share and I can't get motivated to push for the auditions or catering work whose ridiculousity fuels them. I feel like sitting. Planting stuff, maybe. Eating Cadbury eggs. (They only come once a year!) But then I get crazy when I look around and see all these people Energizer Bunnying their careers and start spiraling about needing to catch up.
Are there people who just wake up, go to their studio (or computer) and paint or write or do whatever it is they do and somehow manage to stay in shape, keep the house clean AND pay the bills? I know they exist - I read about them in O Magazine - but that whole "Follow Your Bliss" thing was clearly not entended for people with day jobs.
I'm not sure why I feel the pressure of a time limit on the stuff. I mean, the game is only over when you're dead. How do you all deal?
posted by Ali @ 10:15 AM
3 Comments:
Deal? I'm not sure I do deal. I work well with deadlines -- that I know. When I have to do something by a certain time, it gets done. Without a due date, things just pile up.
Another trick for long term satisfaction (kinda) is to have something to look forward to. Whether it's a vacation in a week or so, a long trip in a few months, or moving at the end of the year. Something like that.
Also, my apartment is a mess, and I haven't planted anything in ages. I'm never going to be featured in O.
I agree that magazines create pretty and amazing stories about pretty and amazing people who do everything and seem to have it all, because that is what many of us want to read about and believe, and frankly those stories are what sells lots of magazines which is the driving force here.
As far as dealing with it..
I think it comes down to making choices. In my opinion NO ONE can have a fabulous and fulfilling career, be in great shape, have beautiful, amazing homes that look immaculate at all times unless they have the money to hire a lot of help to get those things. Those of us who don't have the luxury of being able to have all of that help have to choose. Write that story or clean the bathroom, hop on the treadmill for an hour after you have put in 8+ hours working that day, or camp out in front of the TV with a pint of Ben and Jerry's?
I think you have to figure out what is most important to you, focus on that and arrange your life so that you can do whatever that particular thing is. Save the rest for later, or maybe you don't need it. I think sometimes (I know I have certainly fallen victim to this) we spend time lamenting the fact that we can't accomplish all that we want to do, because by doing that we don't ever really have to stand up and take action and make something happen.
I am the kind of gal that needs a plan, deadline, and structure which can drive others around me crazy, but I gotta do what I gotta do to function. I have also had to learn the great art of letting things go. I am still not very good at it, but it gets easier with practice.
That's my story and I am sticking to it.
Well, that's a mess, isn't it? I think I understand from your post that the problem isn't deadlines as much as 'why haven't I accomplished X yet in my life?'
Thing is, there's usually a reason, and yeah, it comes down to (as Missy basically said) the choices that you made, and the things that you thought were important at that time. The trick, I guess, is to decide on the thing that you will look back on later be happiest that you did? That's tricky, because 'pay the bills' may not rate very high on the list, unless you acknowledge that that also means 'kept my lovely home', et cetera.
I've spent... (and here is where I, like most people, will turn things around to talk about me -- whatever!) many, many, MANY hours, if not days, fighting. Not arguing, per se, although arguments frequently resulted; what I mean is the internal resistance I put up to practically everything that wasn't the 'fun' thing I thought I wanted.
Going shopping. Doing housework. Working on the yard. Running errands. Whatever. I got to the point a few months back when I realized that all this little things I kvetched about were... well, my life, and good or bad, it was the life _I_ personally had built for myself -- basically the one I _wanted_.
And honestly? There's a reason I want that life -- there must be, and the reason is because of the small joys you can find inside. Grocery shopping isn't fun for most people, but most anyone knows the funny little jokes that come out of doing that with someone you like; your significant other or whatever. (I mean, on my last visit out to New York, I did a LOT of really fun stuff, but the fact is I remember the trip to the market, picking up beer and snacks for the Saturday Night party with *just* as much clarity and fondness as I remember the party itself.)
So... yeah. I want to be a fancy published writer with a row of novels on the shelf. I'm 35 and I don't have that. If I sat around and worried about the fact that I don't have that, I wouldn't have anything to WRITE about.
Instead? I go to the market. I pick up some Magners and some taquitos and I get ribbed about being from small-town Denver and I remember the weird CRAMPness of that market.
... and now I have something to write.
Hell, now I have a good story idea.
I guess, maybe, I think you can do everything, but not all at once, and you sort of have to be aware of which thing really needs to be done -now-.
Or something. Lord, I do ramble on.
Post a Comment
<< Home