Lately, my morning pages have been a lot of poor-me-I-don't-have-enough-time-to-do-everything-I-want-to-do and poor-me-I-am-far-too-overscheduled. Blergh. This morning, I was complaining about wanting a couple more hours to myself. You see, I had previously committed the later part of my morning to a roundtable discussion at ART/NY. It started at 10am, which meant I had to leave my home at 9am, which meant I had to start getting ready for my day at 8am. On mornings where I don't have anything scheduled prior to going to work at my jobby-job, I can putz around the house until 11am. I'll be honest: I've had a very demanding week so far. I could've used a "putzy" morning.
However, I (wo)manned up and honored my commitment. Wow, I am so glad I did. I was able to have some thought-provoking conversations with over half a dozen of my peers in the off-off-broadway community. I left the event feeling energized about my life as an artist. I feel excited about producing work with my theater company.
I had a 20 minute walk across town to get to my jobby-job, which afforded me some time to think about what just happened. My mind wandered over some interesting thoughts about energy and how I must learn to use it.
For example, I have asked several of my friends who have children:
"HOW do you DO it?"
I mean, not just in NYC...but AT ALL. Life is exhausting. Here's one of the best things about me that is also the worst: I want to be an expert at everything. It's so frustrating that I don't have enough hours in the day to pratice all the skills I would like to acquire at advanced profficiency. I can't even imagine what kind of fresh hell I'd be inviting into my life by starting a family and still trying to maintain my curiosity about So. Many. Things.
I'm not interested in making "child-rearing" my No. 1 creative project. I've tried to convince myself that I could do that, but I've searched my heart for years now and I don't think it's in me. I'm going to have to have theater projects. But that means, if I decide to have children, I am going to have to figure out how to juggle my double life very, veeeeeeery expertly.
Every "parental" friend that I've queried has immediately replied: "Oh, you just do it. You just find the strength. It's in you. You just find it."
I got a little peek at that concept this morning. As I was leaving the ART/NY event, I realized that I felt great! How did I go from feeling totally maxed out at 7:30am (a mere half hour after getting out of bed!) to feeling excited and full of hope a few hours later?
I tapped into my reserves.
I'm thinking it must unlock itself when you choose to engage in the things you are passionate about. What do you think of that? My "parental" friends are passionate about their kids; Ergo, they find these cavernous reserves of strength inside themselves to make things happen for their kids. Does this concept transfer over into how I feel about making great art? I think so!
When I get around like-minded people and start dreaming about building really terrific theater companies and creating wonderful productions full of world-changing potential, I feel unstoppable.
Of course, now that I've identified it, I have a responsibility to it.
Ri-iiiight?
I have to show up for it. I must trust that I will be energized by making time for the things that matter to me. I must trust that my reserves will kick in no matter how tired or discouraged I feel.
(...the "having kids" thing is waaaay on the back burner, though.)
So now I wanna know....
...what makes YOU feel unstoppable?
What taps your reserves?
