When the creativity leaves

and the work begins

Sure, I’ve been busy finding a place to live, moving our things out of a 10 x 7 foot storage unit and into our new home, continuing the gradual, drawn out process of assembling furniture, measuring spaces for the correct rug sizes, adding various indoor planters and other household items to carts and then abandoning said carts out of fear of racking up too many 100s of dollars on my credit card, stalking Facebook Marketplace for anything I could buy second hand and trying to sell my items that no longer fit in the rooms I’ve established,

spending the majority of my mornings on back to back calls where I pretend to be a grown up again who cares about work, while aggressively refreshing LinkedIn and reworking potential job titles and taking recruiter screens to try to find more stable job to replace my contract gig,

attempting to focus on tasks outside of work calls, exercising when I can and relearning routine.

I’ve been getting together with friends for dinners and drinks to get caught up on lives we’ve led during the year when I was not in America.

I’ve been playing catch up with doctor’s appointments and vaccinations and maybe someday I’ll even make it to a dentist.

The many things it takes to rebuild a life after time away.

Challenges, and busy-ness, and overwhelm, and times of depression and regret that I’m not doing something more interesting. Also, the pleasures of driving around Berkeley through neighborhoods on sunny Saturday afternoons, reminding myself to say out loud “I feel happy,” since I also freely voice my “I feel sad” sentiments when they crop up. These negative feelings are more frequent than normal, but I remind myself I’m in transition and this frequency of not feeling awesome is normal given the reality of change and ambiguity and said rebuilding.

I say goodbye to friends after a gathering and noting “that was really good.” I take mental note that I said “really good,” with depth and appreciation, and not just “nice,” in that way one does in a higher tone of voice, warding off openings for elaboration. The time was really good and that isn’t always a given in adult catch-ups.

This level of activity and adjusting to life after a year abroad has siphoned off the mental and physical energy that used to coil up and sporadically sprout through my consciousness, when I would follow through on my creative inclinations and energy, shaping that energy into something outside of my brain and body.

That space and energy for creativity to burble up when it wanted to, and then feeling energized enough to grab the inspiration and skip along with it, was one of the greatest gifts of spending a year living away from my typical flow of life, working a maximum of 20 hours a week, being exposed to new things and beholden to no one.

However, my understanding is that many (most? all?) creatives, the ones focused on their crafts in earnest, don’t have the luxury of doddling through life waiting for that desire to create to move them to action. Most people don’t have some sort of benefactor bankrolling their passions. No, no, those people must work.

“Creative” and “work” are often two words that go together. It’s not that being creative requires one to also put in work, work is part of real, sustained, creativity. A package deal. Two making up the whole.

So, I’m learning that I will have to start shining a light on the work part of my creativity if I wish to keep writing. Is it true that the idea for this post popped into my head in the shower? Yes, but that little thought pop came after thinking to myself, “Bridget you’re going to have to start making an effort if you want to write again.”

So work and effort, I will make.