There is no place to "start" this story as it is really a series of spirals curling into each other and overlapping in unexpected ways, so I will simply begin.
I watched a commencement speech given by Jane Lynch. It has been floating around Facebook for a bit. She talks about the advice generally given to people (especially artists) and totally turns it on its head. One thing in particular that stuck with me is the part about giving back. She says don't do it. I think it was some of the BEST advice I've ever heard.
Now before you have the opportunity to think poorly of me, hear me out. Basically what I took from that is the following. If you are giving because you think you must give, the potential to be a martyr is pretty high. If, on the other hand, you are happy and fulfilled in your own life, you will naturally give of yourself to people without even realizing it and it will be glorious because it will not diminish you, and it will enrich them because they will not feel as if they are taking from you. It was another way of saying this:
And then I learned the spiritual journey had nothing to do with being nice. It was about being real, authentic. Having boundaries. Honouring my space first, others second.
And in this space of self-care being nice just happened, it flowed not motivated by fear but by love.
BOOM.
(I would love to credit this quote, but can't read the name on it! If anyone knows who coined this, please let me know, it's fantastic!!)
Then, there was a book I just happened to grab from the library. I was there the other day picking up something I had on hold, and thought I should grab something light for entertainment. I grabbed a couple of books from the "staff picks". One of them, a teen fiction, I gave to my daughter, and she devoured it in a few days. The other book, I sat down to read this morning and it has touched me and cracked me open already in several ways. The first and probably most important way is that the woman who wrote it is a visual artist. VISUAL artist, not writer - and yet she has written this wonderful book that I am enjoying immensely. Huh. So one could be, say, a singer (just as a completely random example) and also write. Hmmm....
In this book that is reminiscent of Elizabeth Gilbert's "Eat, Pray, Love", the protagonist makes an exit strategy from her life and embarks on a quest to find a new and better life for herself. She writes about letting go. Letting go of her old preconceived ideas about who she is so she can discover who she really is. In a moment of self-reflection, she lets the last bit go and forgives herself for "...prior judgements of not being good enough to be just who I was." She let go of the identity she had crafted around her work, and just became herself. I love this moment.
I think about my own identity and the confusion this creates. I sing - people enjoy it, I enjoy it, I stop. I write - I enjoy it, others enjoy it, I stop. What the actual F%$k am I doing??
At first I thought my lack of discipline and follow through perhaps meant that I need to "let go" of my identity as an artist and creative person. But no. I don't think so. What I do need to let go of is my identity as a struggling artist, as a struggling anything, really. Maybe, just maybe, it doesn't need to be this hard.
I think that maybe the hard part is letting go of the idea that it has to be hard. The hard part is trusting and allowing. When people say "That was awesome!", be grateful, taste those compliments and then keep working. And if the compliments don't come, be grateful that you can enjoy what you do without them. Compliments should not be the only thing that inspire you to continue, nor should they scare you into standing still because you fear success. Just enjoy the work.
The last piece of the puzzle clicked in to place in conjunction with a conversation with my husband yesterday. He kicked my ass and told me that if I was going to serve my gifts, I would have to commit to them, and discipline myself to work at them daily. The notion of discipline seems so confining and "grown-up" and boring and beige and BLECH. I chafe at the notion of discipline and perhaps if I'm honest, I chafe at the notion of being a grown-up too. Because to me, real grownups are about responsibility, and duty, and logic, and stability, and steadfastness - none of which are particularly bad things, but what they are not is spontaneous and vibrant and sexy and alive and juicy and fulfilled and joyous and creative and all the things I aspire to be. Then today I read in this book about this introverted woman parenting her inner child to do what was best for herself, even though she didn't want to. And I realized that discipline doesn't have to be authoritarian and rigid and strict and utilitarian. Discipline is love. Discipline is loving your child (inner or otherwise) enough to get them to eat their vegetables and go to bed at a reasonable time. Sometimes this happens through coercion, and sometimes you have to be firm. But what you don't have to be is mean. It all comes from a place of love and comes by setting rules and boundaries.
Today Facebook reminded me that several years ago I published a blog posting and people really enjoyed it and I got some amazing feedback from it, and actually inspired people. So here I am. Round-about and spiralling, in a completely non-linear but totally authentic way, I am here. I write, I hope you read, I hope you enjoy, and either way I love the process and myself enough to keep moving.
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