I do my best to stay calm.
In between barely making enough money and working on my art (and occasionally watching True Blood), I force myself to meditate, breathe with intention and stay mindful. I’ve bought into all that stuff, because I want a balanced, fulfilled life.
But then something happens — something that knocks me over and causes my heart to drop or break or just generally stop — and I doubt all of the work I’ve ever done.
You’re just not built for peace.
At least that’s what I think when I’m crumpled in a heap on the floor, feeling sadness and pain in places like my knee caps and right shoulder. …Because that isn’t how normal people act. Normal people aren’t wrecked for years after a break-up, writing songs and plays and short stories while filling journals to the brink with stuff that would make even Sylvia Plath blush. Normal people don’t stay in on a Saturday night so they can exorcise demons with a keyboard. I have normal friends. They agree with me on this one.
And so that’s why I wonder: can true artists ever live a “balanced” life?
Whenever a writer / painter / crazy friend tells me they create better when drunk or on E or after someone’s just kicked their heart into the trash…I shake my head. That’s not me. I don’t subscribe to the Suffering Artist syndrome.
But you know what? I also can’t seem to calm down. Or have normal emotional reactions. On the outside? Sure, I’m great. I almost went to college for acting. I can blend in. But inside? There’s a never-ending barrage of voices and endless waves of feeling. And so I write to get it out. And…yes. Often times when I’m feeling awful, my writing is better.
If one day I was finally able to meditate and mindfully eat my way into a calm, serene existence, would my writing suffer? If the endless waves of emotions turned into a trickle and there was nothing to fight with on a Saturday night, what would I have left?
And would I be happier?
Sometimes I think I would be. Being overly-sensitive is a hard way to live. My friends call me dramatic – but honestly, if it was just dramatics, I’d have cut the sh*t a long time ago.
But then I justify that I can’t imagine my life any way other than it is; that writing gives me too much joy to give up. Any other life wouldn’t be the one I ordered. So I suck it up and order pizza and turn on the TV and push through the car wash of emotion for however long it lasts.
Obviously, I have no idea what to conclude from all of this. I’m waiting for someone else to tell me. Can artists find balance and still remain artists? Or should we just give in and accept our strange, emotional existence with open, trembling arms?
