I confess that I have hit a temporary lull in momentum. I was on such a roll for a few months and then, well, life got in the way. Some of it was welcome: we went camping for the first time in years, we had a string of nice visits to and from friends and family as the summer came to a close, we spent a week at the cottage, and we’ve been doing lots of canning. And some of it was not so welcome, like our dog having seizures due to a reaction to some meds (he’s fine now) and the craziness that’s abounding at work these days.
My file at work has gone from 0 to 100 almost overnight, and the past month has been a string of long, intense days that have left me exhausted – both mentally and physically – by the time I get home. I’ve been missing my little workspace terribly, but I just haven’t had the energy to sit down to work on a mosaic after one of those flat-out intense days at the office. This, in turn, makes me resent my day job, particularly because a lot of the craziness is simply the product of ‘feeding the beast’. So I’ve been a bit of a crankypants.
It’s not that I don’t get any satisfaction from my day job – in terms of office gigs, it’s a pretty good one. I’ve got capable, sane, and funny co-workers, the work is interesting, and I’m pretty good at what I do. But when the frustrations of government work rear their ugly head, I can’t help but yearn for my studio and fantasize about becoming a fulltime artist. I don’t for one second believe that life as an independent artist would be easier. In fact, I’m well aware that the hours would be longer, the pressure more intense (and would rest squarely on my shoulders), and the stakes much higher. But I feel like when hit with one of those days where you shake your fist at the sky and say “Gah! Whyyyyyy??” I’d have a better answer than I do now.
Luckily, the Thanksgiving long weekend gave me the break I needed to recharge my batteries a bit and get back into the studio. It felt so good. Unfortunately, I suspect the craziness at work is going to continue until December or even longer, so it might take me a while to rebuild the momentum that I had going over the summer… *sigh*
