Long Time, No Talk To!

Okay, so I've been MIA for over a month!

First, I was getting READY for the First Annual DFW ATCsForAll Sleepover...

Then, I was AT the Sleepover!

Then, I was RECOVERING from the Sleepover! LOL!

Sooooo, What did I accomplish? Nadalatta.

I was pretty bummed after I got home. I felt like I'd just taken up space...not really accomplished anything. Then I didn't want to Blog about it because I didn't want ANYONE (and you KNOW who you ARE! LOL!) to think it was THEIR fault or that I was blaming anyone but myself!

While chewing thru the whole process, I wondered why I was ragging on myself for not leading the pack and came to a few hard realizations:

1. Not even keeping up makes me feel OLD...
2. I felt like my creativity was about flatlined for the first half of the time I was there. Even after that, I was only going half-speed.
3. I was jealous of others ping-ponging from one project/technique to the next with gay abandon and cranking out art like nobody's business.
   

Whew! THAT was hard to say!

After stewing about it for another day I had a tiny, mollifying AHA moment...my Zoloft prescription, which handily keeps me from going all Rambo at work and thus losing my gainful employment, also "flattens" my creativity. Like most artists, my mood/creativity swings are a bit more extreme than the run-of-the-mill "normal" types. Up until I hit peri-menopause, I was able to deal with it and really did some amazing work on my up-cycles.

For the most part, that made it worth dealing with the down-cycles. Mostly. Until recently. Then I had to decide which was more important...paying rent or being a creative, vital, HOMELESS artist. It's no big surprise that I went with paying rent.

I really hadn't been creating that much in the last year, so I didn't notice the flattening that much. At the sleepover, I noticed. A lot.

So now I have to answer the question: Where do I draw that line? When do I decide that it's better to have my life a little less level and embrace that roller-coaster ride once again? I'm fortunate that my cycle is not so severe as to require the heavy duty meds, and I have friends who will sit on me if I start acting too loopy (which I never have done, well, yet anyway!).

It's something I have to think about.