PDF This morning I’ve made a decision to save my life for a second time. I think …
As contradictory as this may sound, you would know what I’m talking about if you have suppressed a part of you that was as vital as your heart and blood for 11 years.
I’m talking about artwork, of course – or in my case, drawing. I always did it, especially in high school – with Lin. I don’t know if it was a good enough reason to stop when Lin died, but that’s what I did.
I also threw out a college degree, traveled South America like a spiritual vagabond and nearly got myself killed on sex and drugs and not much more. The latter two were enough. Then I met Jon and got married and had children and was saved for the first time, kind of. But it was the first sensible decision I had made in years, the first that would not destroy me for sure if I continued to live like this.
And yet … as I’m sitting here in the kitchen, laptop on table, coffee steaming from mug, vista outside the window a think crisp blanket dropped over everything during the night … I know that that kind of salvation comes at a price. If you ever tried to be creative, whilst trying to raise a family you know what I’m talking about: They demand a price from you.
Children and a husband demand your love and that love, sometimes, has to be taken away from over parts of your life. Because there is only so much time in the day to do dishes, help with homework, clean the house, or work at a dead-end job. It may sound ungrateful but what if it’s true?
That doesn’t mean I blame the people I do love most in the world for my own failure to find the time to draw in the past years. It just means that I have to change my conception of love and extend it to myself more, otherwise I’ll poison the love I have for Jon and the kids. Isn’t that what happened with mum, with she increasingly had to carve out time and energy to try to ‘save’ dad from his bout with the bottle and us kids from getting beat up at school? It was beyond her power and in the end she had to make a clean break: Divorce.
I’m not talking about that, though. In Deborah’s case it was the only option. In my case it would be ridiculous, although I sometimes feel like it. But much as I yearn to have more time to myself, I also want to be with Jon and Emma and Michael – and the rest of the family. They are a part of my heart, as surely as drawing once was. So how do I divide my heart again? I think I have to divorce something …
I have to divorce the idea that I always have to prioritize my family first. Of course, I have to prioritize them first if you added up all the days and nights and looked at the general trend of my actions: They had better come top score for of my husband and children – otherwise what’s the point of being a family in the first place? At least that’s how I see it …
But so far I’ve been too lousy at changing that tune. It was always family first, every day. There was never that ‘other day’ when it was me first, except in stolen moments in front of the television with a bowl of candy, late a nights. But what do you get from such moments except extra fat?
It sounds awfully trite, I know, to realize this – a grown woman, 32 years old and all – but unless you’ve deliberately chosen career first, can you honestly say that you’ve done much more than pay lipservice to the need for balance between your own, purely egoistic needs and those of your family?
If you’ve done that – just paid lipservice – 90% of your time, I don’t blame you. It is natural and you are a good person for doing it, a kind and caring person – except to yourself. And in the end that will help to ruin that which you claim to fight for: The family.
Because bitterness of always prioritizing family first is not something that can easily be suppressed. In fact, it can’t be suppressed. Trouble is, that it’s you try and then it explodes in your face at some point and you do get that divorce.
I don’t believe in drastic solutions. So I am not going to run away to some artists’ colony in San Francisco and live there for 3 months. It’s like a diet – unless you make it a lifestyle it won’t work. At least that’s what I’ve read. I’ve yet to try it. But it feels like it should be so, because I have often tried, in my own little way, to make a run for it. It hasn’t made anyone happier.
So I have to force myself to get up each morning, a little earlier than the rest – and then I will have the time and peace that I need to get drawing again. It just has to be made a habit. And why not? Why do I need to stay up until midnight going zombie in front of the TV, watching half-decent movies – (or even some decent ones) – but still feeling oh-so-sorry for myself? I need to go to bed early and get up early. If people who run for fun can do it, then so can I. Unless I can’t …
I just checked my archives on this blog, at this is the third time I write a similar post about wanting saving my life ‘a second time’. The two other posts are back in draft mode, because I couldn’t maintain the habit long enough. It wasn’t Jon’s fault. It wasn’t Emma or Michael’s. It wasn’t the jobmarket, or my bouts of depression, or the bad heating in the attic where I usually feel best about sitting down with my pen and paper. It was my fault. I slipped back into the wrong balance.
There was too much that ‘needed’ to be done: The house needed to be a little cleaner, the lunchboxes of the kids needed to be a little better prepared, I needed to be a little more loving and understanding towards Jon when he came home after a 10-hour patrol. So what will be different this time? What will it take to actually do what I have stated clearly and unequivocally is so important for that vital other part of my heart not to die?
I think the problem is that I have not been willing to pay the price. Getting up early has a cost. You have to go to bed earlier, at least if you are me. So I can’t be as attentive to Jon as I want when he comes home after a long day of earning all the real money for our family. (And yeah, you know what I’m talking about – but whatever is on your dirty little mind right now … that doesn’t make it any less of a problem for me, does it?)
What it comes to is this: I have tried to get something – extra time and energy – without being completely clear about what I had to cross out instead, without really daring. Cue: Old habit knocks on the door and history repeats itself.
Aside from some husband-wife stuff that might benefit from less repetition and more romantic planning, I am still not sure what I should do less of in the evenings, in order to be fresher in the mornings? Do I need to find other times at day to draw – when? Do I need to find other places where I can draw – where? Do I need to rethink this all over and leave this blog post as yet another draft because I will fail yet again? Maybe I do, but that will also make sure history repeats itself in my case, and then I might not be in a condition to try again next year.
I’ve always been afraid to do something without a plan, just as I’ve always been afraid of failure and the two seem to go together – like heads and aches. I’ve always been afraid of saying I wanted to do something, really wanted it, announcing it – and then not being able to live up to my bold promises about what I’d do to change this time. And the more banal the chance, such as getting up two hours earlier, the harder it becomes for me to actually state that I am going to do it, because it will be more humiliating than ever if I fail yet again.
What a whiny lil’ housewife, I’ve become, huh? Yeah, that’s right. Bottom line: Go and comfort yourself with the chocolate again, Carrie, and call up some of your fellow semi-white trash girlfriends from Yuma, like Lorrie, take the four-wheeler and drop by at her place and sit and backtalk your husbands for a couple of hours (don’t forget the chocolate!). That will make you feel better, for a little while, just like that other Carrie you once were, body and soul, like that other white you once mistaked for beautiful snow.
What was it that it said in that neat little book which my bro-in-law and creative conscience had found for me … and the only thing I remember, aside from the light between the words:
You’re allowed to be scared, just do it anyway.
Right. So despite all my dead-end ruminations, and despite my failure to see what I have to do to be strong enough to keep at my heartwork this time – there are still choices left.
People will tell you that if you really want something, if you really have a burning passion than you will do it by yourself. ‘If it’s important enough you will make the time’. It is not entirely true, because just as you can become unable to trust in the love of other people, after having seem them blown to bits in a war you never knew had anything to do with your life, then you can come down with artist-post traumatic stress disorder.
You can even feel ashamed and ridiculous for calling yourself the a-word, sitting there in your kitchen, with your mug, with your hair all over the place, dreading the moment when the kids will begin to make noise. It doesn’t matter what happened, or whose fault it is – it happens. The only question is what you will do about it.
For example, will you post a long rant, like this, and risk for all the world to see your penchant for obsession, your chronic ability to be indecisive and your general weakness … and thereby line yourself up for another failure – a promise to yourself and to the world that you can’t keep?
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Categorized under: Art-healing, family balance, ruminations, indecision.
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Links: http://www.lovetrustproject.com/
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Feedback: I hope you enjoyed the story. All stories are (copy-)edited regularly. I'd like to hear what you thought of it - or - if you have corrections of US English grammar or suggestions for better use of language, particularly as regards my attempts at writing slang or local dialects. (English is not my native language.) You can reach me here: beyourstory AT gmail DOT com - or leave a comment on the Facebook fan-page Thanks! - Chris.
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