Maybe this is enough

Lately I have been feeling what I think might be contentment. This is a bit of a weird thing to be feeling given the general state of affairs outside of my little slice of the world and I find myself second-guessing it pretty often but for the most part the ambient sense of crushing guilt and dissatisfaction that has accompanied me for most of my life appears to be significantly reduced.

About a year ago I set out to try and stop being so stressed out all the time. I stopped saying yes to so many things, quit a job that was making me miserable, and started trying to focus on my health and good habits. Obviously the whole dying mom situation threw a pretty significant wrench into that plan but for the most part I have stuck to it despite the little voice in my head that tells me I'm worthless if I'm not constantly pushing myself to create. I spent a lot of this time bored or anxious and feeling like I should be doing more but at least for the past few weeks that appears to have abated. I may finally have trained myself to be okay with what I have.

This was always the goal, I think. I spent most of the last five years trying to make art for extrinsic reasons: chasing a grant, or clout, or for the sake of a career the nature of which I was never entirely clear on. Basically I think I discovered that being creative made me happy and quickly proceeded to dedicate myself to making sure it would make me miserable instead. I had to create deadlines for myself, turn this into a job, worry about my career. At some point I realized I wasn't having fun anymore and decided it would be good for me to try to stop turning my passion into work. And that actually seems to be working pretty well!

Sometimes I feel some form of phantom limb syndrome about this. Without the overwhelming sense that I have to be doing something or I am a failure I feel a strange sort of absence and aimlessness. But even that is mostly okay with me! I always wanted to be the type of person who was creative for the sake of it and here I am, writing for myself and not worrying about if I have enough bullet points on my CV anymore. I am producing a lot less than I used to I guess but the urge to create is not gone and I follow it when it takes me naturally. I'm not even sure that I'm spending less time being creative if you take into account all the time I spend writing these days - I just spend less of the time that isn't productive feeling bad about it. I feel okay about spending time reading, playing games, and hanging out with friends instead of constantly worrying that this is time I could be using better. I enjoy my job for the most part without being so passionate about it that I'm constantly terrified of failure. The point of life I think is to do your best to enjoy it and right now I am.

I am not sure how long this state of being will last. I am trying not to count on it since historically whenever I think I have finally "fixed" myself it turns out I was deeply wrong about that. But at least for right now I am feeling what I always hoped I would: that what I have is enough for me. I'm looking forward to waking up tomorrow.