It happens to every creative person, the getting lost thing. I know this. But that doesn’t make it easier.
I’m suffering from the emotional equivalent of stripped gears right now. All the energy and desire to create are still there. But try as I might, I can’t get any traction. I’m spinning, and drinking way too much Diet Coke, and I have a headache, and. . .
. . .there is no joy.
Instead, there’s a great deal of clutter. Surrounded by empty coffee mugs and more than a little bit of dust.
Everywhere I look I see partially finished projects in my workspace. There’s the bottom half of an enfantine dress, the underbodice and skirt of another Edwardian dress, Felicity’s half stitched drawers, an order form for a doll I’m not sure I even want to own much less costume, and many more, half-started-half-finished piles of dreams.
At some point, each of them excited me enough to stop working on the previous one. Yet right now, I’d rather start a forest fire in my room than touch any of them.
And don’t even get me started on the thousands of sticky notes clinging with heroic determination to these little piles. I hate them too, because they don’t match. I’ve got hot pink, and electric blue, and radioactive orange, and some shade of yellowy green that hurts my eyes so much it should be illegal.
There’s no rhyme or reason to the colors. No code. No order. It’s just pure, unadulterated chaos.
But here’s the thing.
I chose this creative life. And I’ve been living it long enough to recognize that I’ve fallen prey to fireflies. To things that blink as if they’re real light, from somewhere in the shadows, and then disappear the second you chase after them.
The way forward is to step back, far enough to see clearly again what my initial priorities were. That’s the path.
Everything else is just underbrush and poison ivy.
I was lost in the woods when I woke up this morning. I decided to share that because it’s honest. And because maybe some of you have had days just like this, and will feel better knowing it happens to everyone.
The weird, spinny, color-uncoordinated hours are just as much a part of the creative journey as the productive ones.