Of Voices and Vacuums
Week 2 of my sabbatical has been long and tough. It has also been a good learning experience in the end.
The little voice in my head that says "What? You mean you haven't got a finished project to show at the end of the day? What have you been doing with your time? Don't you feel guilty?" was pretty loud this week.
Like most people I know, my entire professional life has been about achieving outcomes with a known final deliverable and deadline. My days and weeks have been measured by hitting clearly defined milestones along the road to that deliverable. So to suddenly be on a not-so clearly marked road is a bit surprising and very disconcerting. I am really struggling with trying to change my ingrained 'have-to' thinking into 'want-to' thinking. It's going to take a while for me to easily allow myself the time for mucking about and accepting the non-linear nature of the creative process.
Wait, isn't that the entire point of this undertaking? Yes Gillian, it is.
The other challenge this week has not come as a surprise at all. My main concern heading into this was being lonely, and it turns out I was right. Not necessarily socially, but in general terms of working and interacting with other people. I've always enjoyed spending considerable amounts of time on my own - but that was probably because my life was spent around a lot of people, everyone requiring something from me! I knew I'd reached the limit of my solitary life when I started seriously envying Mark going off to work. I've spent enough time in this vacuum.
A writer on another sabbatical blog wrote about learning that she had to get out of the house by 10 AM everyday. I'm not sure I need to go that far, but I know that I do need to have more and regular plans in place. So, I've now got courses and workshops set up to start in October and in the meantime I've found a small group of women who meet once a week to work on their own projects. Essentially creative time with company. We'll see how that works out. Lunch with someone once a week is going to be a necessity as well as a joy. And regular forays out of the 'burbs and into the city and the country are going to be a must.
Not to say that the week has been a total write off. Stay tuned for a post on a 'Gothic take on shabby chic' scarf that has me actually making some small use of my fledgling crochet skills. But as I head into next week, I'll be working on turning down the volume of that nasty voice, letting some air into the vacuum and cutting myself some slack.
The little voice in my head that says "What? You mean you haven't got a finished project to show at the end of the day? What have you been doing with your time? Don't you feel guilty?" was pretty loud this week.
Like most people I know, my entire professional life has been about achieving outcomes with a known final deliverable and deadline. My days and weeks have been measured by hitting clearly defined milestones along the road to that deliverable. So to suddenly be on a not-so clearly marked road is a bit surprising and very disconcerting. I am really struggling with trying to change my ingrained 'have-to' thinking into 'want-to' thinking. It's going to take a while for me to easily allow myself the time for mucking about and accepting the non-linear nature of the creative process.
Wait, isn't that the entire point of this undertaking? Yes Gillian, it is.
The other challenge this week has not come as a surprise at all. My main concern heading into this was being lonely, and it turns out I was right. Not necessarily socially, but in general terms of working and interacting with other people. I've always enjoyed spending considerable amounts of time on my own - but that was probably because my life was spent around a lot of people, everyone requiring something from me! I knew I'd reached the limit of my solitary life when I started seriously envying Mark going off to work. I've spent enough time in this vacuum.
A writer on another sabbatical blog wrote about learning that she had to get out of the house by 10 AM everyday. I'm not sure I need to go that far, but I know that I do need to have more and regular plans in place. So, I've now got courses and workshops set up to start in October and in the meantime I've found a small group of women who meet once a week to work on their own projects. Essentially creative time with company. We'll see how that works out. Lunch with someone once a week is going to be a necessity as well as a joy. And regular forays out of the 'burbs and into the city and the country are going to be a must.
Not to say that the week has been a total write off. Stay tuned for a post on a 'Gothic take on shabby chic' scarf that has me actually making some small use of my fledgling crochet skills. But as I head into next week, I'll be working on turning down the volume of that nasty voice, letting some air into the vacuum and cutting myself some slack.
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