I’m sure many of you already know where I’m headed with this. It’s probably the same affect a number of us have experienced on and off for the past few months. As creatives, we sort of live in a hostile environment. Unless you’re a professional inheritor of mommy and daddy’s money (which, let’s face it: 99% of us aren’t) you suffer the endless demands of society, such as get a job, find a place to live, pay for housing, find renter’s insurance, pay for renter’s insurance (if you can), find food, pay for food (if you can), don’t forget your $75,000 in student debt (and I’m one of the lucky ones), find health insurance, pay for health insurance (if you can), find a car, find car insurance, pay for car insurance (if you can)… For many of us, the list never ends. And when we find ourselves with free time on our hands, our first instinct is to pass out in front of the TV.
So when things ultimately shut down due to the rise of COVID, my immediate response was a mixture of confusion, concern, and joy. This was my chance, I thought, to finally get my life started—not my role in other peoples’ lives, not my role in the economy, but my life. I drew out a whole schedule of how things were going to go. I was going to dedicate this (what I originally thought would be:) small stretch of time to my creative life. My days would be filled with writing, reading, projects large and small, and they were going to be the start of my true career and the best days of my life.
I forgot one crucial detail about dream jobs: they are still jobs. I have often been an advocate of knowing when to take a break; this time around, I did not listen to my own advice. No matter how much you may love doing something, and maybe even especially if you love it, work of any kind takes time and energy and dedication, and at the end of the day it’s a lot to deal with. When I first started on this pandemic-driven journey, I plotted out an entire schedule that totally wiped weekends off the board. What need did I have for weekends? My work was play. Who needs a break from play?
Truth is, everyone needs a break from anything at some point. Even sitting down can be a hassle. It’s why many of us are relieved to get out of the car after a long road trip.
And the worst part of my ruthless scheduling, I am only just beginning to realize, is even all creative work and no play just for the sake of playing actually stunts creativity more than it drives it. I only saw this after finally putting myself in a position where it was hard to get work done, and so I allowed myself to give it up for a few days, confident I could catch up when I returned to it. And that thought now seems irrelevant, because for the first time in all these months of “no distractions,” the ideas are finally flowing like water again. I’m back in that creative space where one thing leads to another and my mind feels like it’s literally stretching to accommodate the worlds inside it.
I love this feeling.
And I think I owe it all to allowing myself to slow down, let my concerns for the future of my dream job go, and take a break.
— C.M.
Night Owls, what are you doing for self-care during these tumultuous times? What are some of the ways you take a break?
