Grants are due soon. I thought this time I would start early. I always say that, and I always leave it to the last minute. Now that I am forced to be more structured with my work (since I have the babysitter only 3 mornings per week) I thought it would be easier to focus. People ask me how I find balancing a career and baby, and the funny thing is I feel like I don't balance anything. I feel like I am not fully here and not fully there. I feel like I am just scraping by. I basically don't work much, and then when I have to, I wing it. It is as if my creative juices have run dry. I am missing time to think. This is the first time in my life that I am busy. I used to have too much time, which is not a good thing either, not being busy can suck out energy too.
So here I am, busy, trying to come up with interesting programs for next year, instead all I come up with is that the world doesn't need another concert. Sometime I wish that all I had to worry about was Anise and domestic issues. Wishing for something that I know I could have, I have the fortune of not depending financially on my work, yet knowing that would leave me unsatisfied. If not now, then later.
I also find myself dreaming up other career possibilities. Maybe starting a new business, doing crafts, finding that perfect job...What is my perfect job? I have no idea. I think my perfect job would be getting hired as a flute player, but hired with the best groups, some touring (not too much), and artistic control! Sounds a bit like what I do, except that I don't get funding so I waste my time on grant applications, sometimes I don't get a big enough audience, and I feel generally like I am not getting the validation I would like. So in other words, I am dissatisfied with the way my career is going. Could it change? Maybe. Could I make it change? I am not sure if it will just have to go on its own, whether one day I will be at the right place at the right time. When pushing too hard has the opposite effect, it is best to just stop. If the energy we put out is desperate energy people feel it, and generally nothing good comes of it. Which is why things have to happen on their own, in their own time. Sometimes it can be long. Right now it feels long. But I have other worries, like naps! And babysitters! All which seem much much more important.
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You're right, the world doesn't need another anything. But when asked, you will comply.
ReplyDeleteI happen to be giving a talk tonight on "Life in Balance" to parents at a preschool, and your post affirms my message, so you served me just fine. That's how life stays in balance. By itself, and without us knowing.
wow.
ReplyDeletei've been in a similar place.
pushing too hard makes for rigid and awkward expectations. How much freer to just STOP. And let it go and come again and go again.
thank-you.
I feel like you've hit on the crux of something - for me, at least - this question of feeling torn/caught - wanting the simplicity of "just" being home, while wanting to feel engaged and validated and connected through work, too. Man, it makes me take a deep breath. You can't push rope, can't push a river. And when we let go a bit into that current, it takes us exactly where we need to be - which does seem to wind up being right where we already are.
ReplyDeleteGlad the clucking helped.
xo Jena
Just catching up - not much time to myself recently (but life is good).
ReplyDeleteMost succinctly: me too. See my post. I felt like I was beginning to usurp your comments for my own purposes.