The Creativity Project
An unexpected experiment.
What started out as a relaxing month has become so much more. But perhaps I’m getting ahead of myself.
I quit my job at the end of September. At the time, I was physically and mentally worn out. What had started as a fun job coaching kids in obstacles and martial arts became a daily struggle. Injuries wouldn’t heal because I was constantly getting re-injured. My boss would take out her bad moods on me. It wasn’t my passion.
Don’t get me wrong. I loved the kids I taught, but I was an introvert doing an extrovert’s job. And popping pain killers like they were candy.
So I saved up and took the month of October off to heal and recharge my batteries. It came at a perfect time as my grandmother had just died and we had to travel for the funeral. I had enough money to take a full month off, possibly two if I played my cards right.
I needed the break. I hadn’t been writing as much as I’d like to. I rarely saw my husband as we were on opposite schedules (and any hope I had of getting other hours were dashed earlier in the year). In short, I was a mess.
The first thing I did was sleep in. And sleep a lot. My body needed the rest to heal.
I stopped training except for martial arts. Which turned out to be a bad idea because I still wasn’t healing from my injuries and my teacher had an emergency that left me teaching more nights than not.
And I made a deal with myself: I would continue being a full time creative for as long as I could support it.
Which meant that what was supposed to be only for the month of October has stretched until the beginning of February.
I used October to see my family (although, I would’ve liked different circumstances), prep for NaNoWriMo, and do some other creative work. And I let my body heal.
And I planned for the next phase of my life. One where I loved what I did and finally got my writing back on track.
October taught me the need to slow down and take time to sink into the moment.
What would November teach me?
