Full Creative Immersion

There is no feeling for me, like being fully present in an activity that I'm passionate about. I lose all track of time and hours pass without my knowledge or consent. I come out of my creative fog and have no idea what's going on around me. My studio is a disaster, I have no idea where my phone is, I haven't completed the things I meant to complete and dinner is going to have to be a spur of the moment event because it is suddenly too late and too much effort to tackle the delicious meal that just this morning sounded like a good idea.

I have had this sense that there was something just beyond the horizon since last winter. I was full of anticipation, dreams and inspiration.  But then real life barged in and I had to shelve the ideas that were filling my head. In fact, I had to shelve them so far and deep that I worried a bit that I wouldn't be able to access them when the time was right. I spent a lot of months not making myself a priority which is just the way some seasons of our life go. And that's perfectly okay- as long as we don't make that a permanent situation.

Fast forward three quarters of the year and I find myself able to carve out time to follow my whims, throw myself into a subject with reckless abandon, spending every possible moment I can, learning. Last year when I was starting to give some thought to what life would like when the nest was empty, I was feeling a fair amount of pressure to make some decisions about what came next. Mind you, all of this pressure was internal and all of these thoughts were based on what I thought other people expected of me now. When I talked it over with my Sweet Man, he asked me what I pictured for my next phase and I immediately replied without any hesitation... FULL CREATIVE IMMERSION!

So, that was settled. I threw myself into reworking my studio, started the new year by spending the day in there and then tucked away my hopes for full creative immersion into a little spot in my heart that I would occasionally visit wistfully for the months to come.

And now here I am, deep diving into watercolor painting, still knitting whenever I can, taking a rug hooking class, digging out my embroidery projects, planning a quilt, planning on spending time sketching, signing up for more creative classes than I can reasonably juggle and any number of other interests that have my head filled to capacity and have me dreaming creative dreams every night.

I'm finding myself again but with a new depth that my life currently allows for. This phase that I'm embarking on feels like a very important period of my life- the kind you look back on and think of as before that moment and after that moment. It's not that it's better, because what could be better than raising my girls, but it's valuable and fulfilling in a completely new way. I can't always guide the changes in my life, but I can choose how I embrace those changes.