Jan. 15, 2002
I don’t want to admit it. I’m embarrassed to say it. I feel like a fake to declare it. But I will if only to keep the integrity of this site.
I’m having a down day. A full blown can’t get my ass to work even if it had to save my life kind of day. I know, it was just the other day I was complaining about not having any down time.
I went to bed at around midnight last night full of energy and enthusiasm. I had my weekly Docent Training class last night at the museum and it left my brain whirling because we had just spent three hours learning about abstract art and artists. This was by far the most interesting class I have had in my four months there and for the first time I made a connection to abstract art. Instead of hating it I have to confess to now being extremely passionate about it. Learning about it made me feel freer with regards to my own creativity and that I didn’t have to colour within the lines to be accepted. It wasn’t about being pretty, but expressing. That new thread of learning energised me into wanting to paint and create again after a month of stillness. I couldn’t wait for the next day to begin.
When I got home from class I had emails from several people who just made me feel so wonderful and excited. Their enthusiasm and honesty made me feel accepted as an artist and friend. Their words made me feel powerful. “If they say I’m on the right track,” I thought, “I must be! Let’s show them they’re right!”
With so many ideas and encouragement with me, I went to sleep a very content, excited person, waiting for the next morning when I could use all the feelings I had to begin something.
Instead of waking up at the usual, normal hour of 8am, something woke me up instead at 4am. Even for the workaholic I’ve become, 4 am is just downright too dirty a time to start doing anything and so I tried to fall back to sleep. But I couldn’t. I began to try every trick in the book to no avail. The milk didn’t work, watching mindless tv didn’t work, and meditation didn’t work. Even two thousand sheep didn’t work. I was up, no way around it.
With less than four hours sleep, I was tired and in a funk. My eyes had a hard time functioning and my brain was thicker than London Fog. This rendered me useless. I kept wandering the house trying to settle down and do something but at around 11:30am I had to give in and take a nap.
After the nap I tried to write. I began to just work on what was already there hoping my brain would get a much needed jumpstart. But it didn’t’. Instead I was left cranky, more tired, frustrated and even a little bitter. I think I even wallowed a little bit too.
It’s frustrating to me when I want to do something – work on my writing, finish my proposal, make some headway on my portfolio – but I just can’t. I get angry with myself for not doing anything. If I call in sick I don’t have a back up to keep things caught up and going until I return. If I don’t do anything, nothing gets done.
It’s hard for me to accept that some days I kick ass and some days, not so much. The past two weeks I have been superwoman and accomplished so much with little sleep, that I have a hard time comprehending why today is any different.
I have all this inspiration around me; great ideas that need to be made real and too many wonderful things going on. But right now I just don’t want to be a part of any of it. I’m worn out, I’m tired and I need to accept that today, that’s just going to have to be OK.
Even if it kills me.
Jan. 13, 2002
Is it Wednesday, Thursday or Friday? Or is it the weekend? Is it 8am or 8pm? If you had asked me that yesterday you would have been given just a blank look from me as I shrugged my shoulders. I’ve been living a haphazard life the past week or so that regular days with regular schedules didn’t mean that much.
I’ve been working overtime because of all that’s happening. Literally going to bed at 3am only to wake at 8am to begin a non-stop day. There’s just been so much to do.
I’ve been consumed with learning about publishing. There’s so much that I wasn’t aware of so I’ve been spending a lot of time trying to catch up so that I might at some point get ahead. So I’ve been reading a lot of books on the subject and then putting what I’ve learned to use with my book proposal.
I’ve had my Docent Class at the museum start back up and have been reading the terribly fat (but juicy) art book they assign while trying to get into the rhythm of going to a weekly class and all the events they have going on.
Also I’ve had websites to keep up to date, portfolios to work on and magazine articles to write. I checked my palm the other day and it was frighteningly full. I think August 21st was the first free day I could claim.
I’ve been enjoying it all so much that I never stopped to question if I should slow down and catch my breath. I didn’t think about it because I thought my enthusiasm and want would continue carrying me through each day.
And it did for the first few weeks. But after days of little sleep, forgetting to eat and not a moment of brain rest, my eyes had become heavy and dark and my brain became too clouded to make sense. I actually began to hinder my process because of stupid mistakes I was making from being tired.
So I tried to take breaks. I tried the true and tested remedy of having a sinfully rich bubble bath complete with Mr Bubbles and a cup of perfectly brewed tea. But when I laid my head back into the pillow with the intention of doing nothing more than listening to the bubbles pop, my brain began to work. Then I remembered that for some reason, I tend to have the most brilliant ideas in the bath of all places. And as they began to form I had to pop out of the tub and turn to the computer. I began to work all over again.
The next day I decided that I had to really take a break and get away from the computer. I thought a nice long walk to the café would bring me some fresh air and peace and quite as I walked along the lake and counted birds overhead. But the walk just made me feel energised and by the time I got to the café I had too many notes I had to scribble down. So I skipped the latte and opted for a glass of water at home as I typed out my thoughts.
I just haven’t been able to rest. Part of the reason I think is because I have been a little afraid that if I stopped even for a moment I would lose my momentum. I thought if I went to bed when I was tired, when I woke up I’d have no ambition to keep writing. For the first time since I began all this I felt like I was finally working on something concrete and important and I was scared that I might just give up on it and end up watching Oprah all day.
So instead of resting when I truly needed to, I just kept working. I lost all private moments and thoughts, I lost track of each day, I lost track of what was happening in my home and I think I even lost a little bit of me.
Then today I realised that at the exact moment I don’t think I can take a break is the exact moment I need to take one.
If I don’t I won’t reenergize myself or bring new light to what I’m working on. If I don’t I’ll hinder my progress by making those same silly mistakes I’ve been continuously making. If I don’t, I’ll forget the reason why I’m working so hard in the first place.
I think I forgot all that because working at home you don’t have a time clock to punch or an office to leave behind. Those 15-minute breaks I so viciously used to guard in my corporate world had become distant memories now that I worked from home. But I realised that I have to take them, even when I don’t think I can.
Doing that, I know that know won’t lose the momentum. I’m not the same person with the same intentions as last December. I’ve got my head on and it’s looking forward. Momentum, I think, is energy your brain wills. And I’ve proven I’ve got that even if I take eight hours to sleep.
Jan. 01, 2002
I’ve never reflected on the previous year when New Years comes around because before each year was just there. Sometimes there were grand adventures and sometimes there were just months filled with boring, everyday days. But this year, this year something happened.
I acted for myself.
This time last year I would never have thought that I would have gone out on my own and become a freelance writer. Last January that wasn’t in the cards. Working to help support my family and help put Chris through school was. I was counting down the days until my raise and I was listing all my accomplishments at my corporate job. I was also feeling anxious, depressed and for the first time in my life, a little regret. Regret that I had wasted two years and would keep wasting more.
However in April the situation changed. I changed. I took the first step and believed in myself just enough to get me to listen to my heart. That one step has turned into the biggest, scariest, most beautiful and rewarding journey of my life thus far. It also allowed me to get back to being the person I was before I hid it in suits and 8am meetings.
It has also taught me a great deal. I’ve learned so much from all of this, more than any trip overseas, time in a classroom, or book riled with wisdom.
I learned to act for myself and do as I needed. I learned that no matter how scared I am that I can move forward. I learned to have patience. I learned that just because you have a dream, doesn’t mean living it is easy. I learned that nothing is handed to you, you have to work at it. If it is handed to you, you still have to work at it to maintain it. I learned to ask for help and advice. I learned that being scared is not only OK, but normal. I learned that I am capable of so much more than I ever thought possible. I learned that my 5th grade teacher was wrong. I learned to accept frustration is a part of life, but not a deterrent. I learned to stop questioning myself so much. I learned to quiet the voices of those that don’t understand or believe. I learned to raise the voices of those who do. I learned that nothing happens over night, but if you keep trying, it does happen. I learned that if one way doesn’t work, another will. I learned to live from the heart. I learned that I am vulnerable but also strong and brave. I learned that nothing makes me happier than knowing I live each day doing what I am meant to do. I learned to do as much as I can each day. I learned to replace the word “failure” with the phrase “it just didn’t work out.” I learned that tea really is a godsend at 4pm. I learned to feel proud. I learned that I am not the only one who has gone through this or will go through this. Above all, I learned to never waste one moment ever again.
This year has changed me in ways I wouldn’t have imagined last January. I feel there has been some amazing groundwork laid and that for 2002 and now I can really focus on the work of writing, because most of the mental work of shifting gears is out of the way.
Here’s to 2002.
Dec. 31, 2001
In all the 27 new years that have come and gone, I have not once made a resolution.
For the most part, I thought they felt a little negative because you hear more often than not of people making resolutions that are just made to be broken or don’t seem so important. You know the ones – lose 10lbs, quit smoking, stop being mean to my brother, exercise at 5am each day, read War and Peace etc.
This year, however, I’ve decided that I’m going to make one.
It’s not so much of what I’m not going to do, but rather, what I am going to do. And what I am going to do this year is not hold back.
This new feeling of bravery started in mid-December when something inside just clicked. When I realised that I by writing, I was a writer. And how much of a writer depended on how much I wrote and what I did with it. That feeling of accepting who I am and being comfortable has allowed me to relax and focus on moving forward, instead of spending time question if I have the right to move forward.
I think of all the time from April until December that I held back, and all the opportunities that passed me by because I was afraid or the friendships I missed because I was too scared to sound stupid and hit the reply button. I think of all the paintings that I never started because I was too scared that they’d be stupid and all the writing bits I threw out because I was afraid that someone might read them. That’s not what I am about and that’s not what living is about.
Now that I’m back to remembering that I won’t waste anymore time. No more holding back.
Dec. 19, 2001
I haven’t been holding back at all the past several days. I’ve created a scary amount of momentum and accomplished things that used to be just ideas floating in my mind. I’ve finally spent time working on my portfolio, I’ve been working on launching two sites, and I’ve been writing like mad for another writing project whose deadline is January 01st. I’ve been doing and doing and doing.
It feels bloody fabulous.
That’s not to say that I have put in 13-hour days or broken any records for the most amount of work in one hour – I haven’t. In fact, one day I didn’t do more than hours worth of anything, let alone writing. On that particular day, I couldn’t do much of anything at all, so I didn’t. But the next day when I thought about all that I could do, I did it all.
I’ve just felt so completely liberated since I examined things and figured out where my head was. The clarity has been the best Christmas present I could have ever asked for. I realise now that things are just so simple, so easy to see. I think my fear was manifesting everything into a big complicated mess. Fear is a bugger like that.
That’s why I created that poster yesterday. I truly believe that if you want to be a writer, the only thing you have to do is write. There is no path to follow, no test to pass, no course to take, no lifestyle to follow. You just have to write. Plain and simple.
The quote by Edison along with creating the poster yesterday has just given me back my friendship with freedom and allowed me to write as I need to. No more reading every book on how to write, no more playing tricks to get me to write, no more trying to create schedules that don’t work anyway, no more talking about writing or how I feel about writing. No more fear of failing or not living up to some kind of imagined expectations. No more fluff. Just writing.
When I mentioned this to Chris he said to me, “Sounds like you finally meshed the two.”
“The two what?” I said.
“Your life and your writing. You’ve been keeping them pretty separate.”
“Writing is my life.” I said back to him.
“No,” he said, “It’s been your job. You’ve treated it different. Your personal, kick ass, simple, real logic that you have in your every day life hasn’t been applied to your writing life. You’re always full of confidence but when it came to writing it seemed to vanish. You seemed to vanish. But it looks likes now how you are in your every day life and how you work in that is being applied to your writing. You’re writing now instead of you trying to be somebody who writes.”
I hadn’t ever thought of it that way but I can completely see it now. Before I had felt that just simply writing wasn’t enough to make someone a writer. I thought I had to do “writer” things and follow a “writers” path so I tried to create some kind of form and function to follow. I tried to give power to myself via someone else. But the truth is, I was a writer all along for the mere fact that I wrote.
I don’t, however, feel like such a dumbass for not realising that any sooner. After all Dorothy didn’t find out either until she had gone on a huge colourful journey too.
Dec. 18, 2001
How to Be a Writer by Alex Beauchamp
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