LIFE and Creativity

Creative Highlight - Photo by Quan Jing

HANG IN THERE.

Ever see the wonderful poster of a cat hanging by a branch with the title, “Hang in there”? How couldn’t we?

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about what it means to manage life while remaining creative.

When life is life-ing.

When your family needs you. When something unexpected happens. When you're carrying conversations and emotions that have absolutely nothing to do with your work, but somehow follow you anyway.

I've been experiencing a lot of this lately.

There are things happening within my family that have required more of me emotionally than I expected. And for an almost excruciating amount of time. Some of it has made me think about responsibility, boundaries, relationships, and how much of ourselves we are supposed to give when someone we care about is struggling.

And at the exact same time, I'm building. Creating.

I'm building Creative Access. I'm supporting a community. I'm working on a podcast. I'm writing. I'm thinking about the future of my purpose and what I want all of this to become. And when I say purpose, purpose comes from a place of quiet. Of being present. Of being alone with yourself long enough to hear the whisper, and trust me, it’s a whisper.

My fear is that I won’t have enough. Enough to create and enough to give. Not only to others but to myself. I’ve always given more because I care deeply. And in that process, I at one point became only a shell of myself.

The truth is, we do need to be the best versions of ourselves if we want to be able to give to ourselves and to others. And this isn’t just another message being fed to you by the Instagram algorithm, reminding you to take care of yourself. It’s actually TRUE. How can we help anyone if we’re living a life in a cup only half-full… and I say half-full because I’ve always wanted to see things this way. Even when the TRUTH might actually be that the cup is half-empty. And maybe that’s been an illusion I chose to live because I knew finding the positive might keep my mind positive as well.

There are days when we find ourselves incredibly excited about what we wake up to build. And then there are days when we wake up a little less inspired or eager to become.

The daily life of “Freelance” creating (aka humans working for themselves) is a space that doesn’t have the structure of the everyday gig. The payroll life with health insurance and paid holidays. The one most families inspire (or tell) their children to become. The “real job.” It’s a life that has as much freedom as it does expectation. YOU are responsible for waking up “on time” or if you’re like me, working into the late evening hours and having to ask yourself, what’s better, staying up late when you’re in the flow? Or waking up at a decent time because summer break is just about to be over for River and goddammit, if I get stuck in “summer mode” staying up late again I’ll be screwed for days and weeks to come!!!

Being Freelance means taking responsibility. No one is going to wake up for you. No one is going to do the work for you. NO ONE is going to CREATE for you… Being Creative means so much more than mastering the technical skills of your craft. It expects you to keep evolving as a human being… to keep inspiring the world… and to help the world FEEL something… The gift of creativity is a gift unlike any other.

And by the way… all humans are creative. Not just the “creative” ones. ;)

And then it came to me this morning… my creative mind wants to do what it wants to do when it wants to do it. And that doesn’t always work. At least not in a world constantly drizzling responsibility. What we need now in our creative lives is a routine. A schedule. Otherwise, we might turn into a bunch of children floating around Target without our list of necessary items. We may end up walking out with some cool new thing but totally forget the toilet paper. Has anyone seen what that looks like? A child with no structure? It’s dangerous AND laughable at the same time. Being almost 40 and living like this is no different… and so… the structure begins.

It's structure that protects our abilities to create while life continues.

I write this with the energy I have to give, that I made, and created… I wish you all the power to keep creating. Hang in there… I believe in you. We all do.