True confession: I’ve been struggling.
It’s not really a secret… generally, when I go underground and stop posting it’s because I am buried or overwhelmed (or, just maybe, a little depressed).
Lately, I’ve been all three.
My much-anticipated Goal Drive didn’t happen. I was hit by a big storm and an even bigger flu. That flu/head cold thing made it’s way through all my littles and then had its way with me and left me beat. By the time I dragged myself out of bed again I was depressed, behind, unproductive and sad. I stopped moving.
I sort of pride myself on having a high productivity rate. Oh, it’s not always measurable; in fact, it’s often not. Alongside a few finished articles and paintings, it’s more often about innumerable storybooks read, questions answered, and laundry folded – but between it all I have myself fairly well committed, and here in inkstitch-land things run pretty close to the wire… so it doesn’t take much of a slip-up for things to sort of, well, fall apart.
And then, sometimes, I fall apart, too.
This is a truth we’re all familiar with: It takes energy to gain momentum. It takes some serious oomph. Once you’ve got it, momentum is a generous and wonderful being; it can take you all kinds of places. It’s an easy, benevolent force that brings life to the party and water to the well. It’s a friend to laugh with… but sometimes it deserts you. Sometimes it drops you right on your ass just when you need it the most and leaves you dirty and cold and sitting in some dark place covered in snot and tears wondering how you’ll ever get moving again.
Which, I’m sorry to admit, is exactly where I’ve been. Weeks of big-project-burnout-then-holidays-then-illness robbed me of my momentum and left me bereft. I got feeling so barren and behind that I couldn’t possibly fit “Create” onto my To-Do list, let alone shop listings or tidying the studio. The longer it went, the more impossible it seemed, but I hadn’t the energy to do a thing about it.
These are the times it’s important to call up this equal but even more important truth that perhaps you didn’t know: Sometimes it takes momentum to gain energy.
Sometimes when your energy has left you, all you have to do is move, just a little, to bring it back.
You don’t have to do the whole dance; you don’t have to know the ending or perform the whole show. All it takes is a tiny wiggle. Momentum wants to work for you. With even the slightest nudge, it has the awesome ability to spring up and start running right where you left off, bringing with it new life and fresh air and a blessed rush of good energy. A small step can make a big difference.
This here, this is my wiggle: Today I got paint on my hands. I didn’t create a masterpiece; I didn’t try a new technique or complete a painting. I didn’t set out with any goal at all except “make a little mark.” With school work to be done and mud on the the floor and dinner waiting at the other end of a take-out line, I put paint on a sheet of paper and let it dry. A single step, that’s all.
But that’s all it took for momentum to pick me up and carry me the rest of the way.
I’m still “behind” (I probably always will be), and if we want to continue with the confessions, I’d have to tell you that the muddy floor got mopped with a wet-wipe and that’s probably all it will get this week. Yes, sometimes I think I don’t have the time or energy to create. But that’s okay; that’s when I need the paint on my hands the most. That’s when the littlest movements can make way for some big, gorgeous energy.
Love that.
