Yesterday I spoke about my tough session with Brian this week. I had a tough week and somehow, despite my usually feisty demeanor, I let it get to me. It wore me out. I want to be working full-time on projects I am passionate about, that are of consequence, not just to me, but to the world. Not I straddle those two worlds, one foot in a place that pays my bills but gives me little in the way of meaning, and the other in my creative life, which provides my soul with so much nourishment and yet does little for my bank account. The straddle is more difficult than I like to admit.
And so the argument raged on in my mind last week – my need to be practical and grounded, and my need to care about the work in front of me. At the moment, those two things are not compatible in my life. It’s causing me to feel stagnant and exhausted for no good reason. And it perplexes me.
Brian listened to me, but rather than expressing his empathy, he recognized that I needed a dose of very tough love. “Christa, you are going to have to employ your creativity. Give yourself some boundaries, some guidelines, and tell your creativity that failure is just not an option. You have to find a way to care again, not about your present situation, but about the gifts you have to offer. If you don’t employ those with everything you’ve got, then you are losing and so is everyone else. You cannot hide from who you are.”
While I apply my creativity to my teaching and to my writing, I don’t employ it effectively in the design of my life. I’ve cooked up this hodgepodge of how I spend my time, each activity fulfilling some of my needs, but no activity filling all of them. There must be a better way, a way to feed my stomach and soul simultaneously, and no one else is going to build that opportunity for me. It is one thing I must wrestle through on my own and a non-answer, a holding pattern is no longer an option. A change is imminent, and I am the one who is going to have to usher it into being through my own creativity.
Christa Avampato 