This year has been very busy and very hard. My mental health has suffered and as a consequence, my creative practice. While last year I managed my goal of writing one short story every month, comparatively this year I have written very little. I had not set a large goal for this year. I had a project earlier on which I knew would eat into my brain matter, so I had decided at the outset to take things easy.
But not quite this easy...
When I have little to no creative output everything just feels wrong. It's not due to guilt, or ego. It's more a loss of my sense of self. I've been creating in some form or another for as long as I can remember. I started keeping a poetry journal when I was about eight, which I still have* alongside some of the obsessively crafted stories of imaginary worlds a nine year old me put on paper. While creating is a large part of who I am I strongly suspect that it's a coping mechanism. Sometimes a means of escaping. Sometimes a means of analysing and understanding. Always an important tool for managing my mental health.
A stack of frozen baby food. So pretty!
When the kids were little and my brain function was at an all time low, I focused on creating manageable things. I made jellies and delighted in their colours. I made a sourdough starter and from that created gluten free bread twice a week. I exulted in the rainbow of homemade baby food I blitzed for Etta. I focused on different creative outputs so I still felt human.
But this year my brain has felt too full to do even that.
I have had patches of activity and patches of nothingness. There has been no consistency. My mental health has been the worst it's been since Abby was small**. And I'm not sure what this is like for other creatives, but for me it forms a vicious cycle. Down and exhausted so no energy to create. Don't create, so feel further disconnected from myself. Disconnection makes me feel even worse about myself.
This breakthrough was, in part, due to going back onto medication to get some stability***. Once I gained my equilibrium I had a brilliant idea.
Excel.
I love spreadsheets. They help me feel calm. The absolutes of mathematics are comforting. While I mostly use them for creating budgets (I love making budgets), I've used them for many other things. I used them to monitor Etta's sleep when she was a baby. I use them to create week planners and charts for the kids. I used them to chart my temperature when I was attempting to conceive Etta**** - which totally worked. In fact, one of Etta's middle names (Sally) is derived from Murray's workmates nickname for our potential progeny: Celly. Thus named for mine and Murray's***** obsession with Excel.
A few weeks ago I suddenly realised another way I could use Excel to improve my life.
I started tracking my writing.
I set myself an optimum goal of writing four hours a week. I know it doesn't seem like much, but it is much more than zero. Four hours is half of an eight hour work day. Four hours feels like a manageable amount plus enough to achieve something tangible. And while I haven't managed that goal as yet, I have managed to get some semblance of a writing practice happening. I am excited about creating data to analyse and decide what else I should be tracking. I have managed to post a blog once a week over the last three weeks while posting consistently on the same day. This has never happened before.
I have built some LEGO this year, but building
without instructions meets a very different need.
It probably seems a bit silly, but I'm a list maker. I'm a chart filler. I'm a box ticker. Having a visual reminder of what I should be doing makes me want to fill in those little boxes. I'm a teachers pet from way back. So it means that even if I really don't feel like writing. Even if my brain is tired or my mind is blank I am picking up the laptop in bed and putting words on the screen. I'm taking the lappy to work and snatching five minutes of writing time in the car. I am editing in the lunch room. And those words might be rubbish. But it doesn't matter. Because it's a start and it gives me a place to work forward from. Building something is better than building nothing.
And I am starting to feel better. I am still saddened that two wonderful people have left this earth sooner than they should have, but I'm coming to terms with it. They were both problem solvers. Both determined (some might even say stubborn) to do what they felt they were called to regardless of what barriers were put in their path. Even if what I'm making currently is unremarkable, I am making. And making is helping this grief, this loss, feel more manageable.
* Oh dear lord there is some awful stuff in there!
** A colicky baby who will not sleep alone plus a toddler with sensory issues does not make for good mental health
*** I had gone off my meds by accident (again), but had been coping ok. I found that I was sleeping much better when I wasn't medicated, and that felt friggen amazing. But with all the things that happened this year, after a while that ability to cope faded. And, even with the negative affect it has on my sleep, medication became necessary again.
**** I only have one fallopian tube and had just been the go ahead to try to conceive. But when not on the pill, my cycle is super irregular (thank you endo!) so I needed all the help I could get. We had been told due to my medical issues we would be eligible for one bout of free IVF on the government, but having been through unsuccessful IVF as an egg donor previously, I really hoped to avoid that.
***** Murray is not so much obsessed with Excel, as someone who has had to use it as part of his job. He is the master of adding buttons to make cool stuff happen to your data collection.
But not quite this easy...
I'm the tallest one in the picture for once!
Winning a Mothers Day Card comp circa 1993
Winning a Mothers Day Card comp circa 1993
A stack of frozen baby food. So pretty!
But this year my brain has felt too full to do even that.
I have had patches of activity and patches of nothingness. There has been no consistency. My mental health has been the worst it's been since Abby was small**. And I'm not sure what this is like for other creatives, but for me it forms a vicious cycle. Down and exhausted so no energy to create. Don't create, so feel further disconnected from myself. Disconnection makes me feel even worse about myself.
Plum jellies, such a gorgeous colour!
But recently I've had a breakthrough.
This breakthrough was, in part, due to going back onto medication to get some stability***. Once I gained my equilibrium I had a brilliant idea.
Excel.
I love spreadsheets. They help me feel calm. The absolutes of mathematics are comforting. While I mostly use them for creating budgets (I love making budgets), I've used them for many other things. I used them to monitor Etta's sleep when she was a baby. I use them to create week planners and charts for the kids. I used them to chart my temperature when I was attempting to conceive Etta**** - which totally worked. In fact, one of Etta's middle names (Sally) is derived from Murray's workmates nickname for our potential progeny: Celly. Thus named for mine and Murray's***** obsession with Excel.
A few weeks ago I suddenly realised another way I could use Excel to improve my life.
I started tracking my writing.
I set myself an optimum goal of writing four hours a week. I know it doesn't seem like much, but it is much more than zero. Four hours is half of an eight hour work day. Four hours feels like a manageable amount plus enough to achieve something tangible. And while I haven't managed that goal as yet, I have managed to get some semblance of a writing practice happening. I am excited about creating data to analyse and decide what else I should be tracking. I have managed to post a blog once a week over the last three weeks while posting consistently on the same day. This has never happened before.
I have built some LEGO this year, but building
without instructions meets a very different need.
And I am starting to feel better. I am still saddened that two wonderful people have left this earth sooner than they should have, but I'm coming to terms with it. They were both problem solvers. Both determined (some might even say stubborn) to do what they felt they were called to regardless of what barriers were put in their path. Even if what I'm making currently is unremarkable, I am making. And making is helping this grief, this loss, feel more manageable.
* Oh dear lord there is some awful stuff in there!
** A colicky baby who will not sleep alone plus a toddler with sensory issues does not make for good mental health
*** I had gone off my meds by accident (again), but had been coping ok. I found that I was sleeping much better when I wasn't medicated, and that felt friggen amazing. But with all the things that happened this year, after a while that ability to cope faded. And, even with the negative affect it has on my sleep, medication became necessary again.
**** I only have one fallopian tube and had just been the go ahead to try to conceive. But when not on the pill, my cycle is super irregular (thank you endo!) so I needed all the help I could get. We had been told due to my medical issues we would be eligible for one bout of free IVF on the government, but having been through unsuccessful IVF as an egg donor previously, I really hoped to avoid that.
***** Murray is not so much obsessed with Excel, as someone who has had to use it as part of his job. He is the master of adding buttons to make cool stuff happen to your data collection.
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