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Imperfect, uninspired, and mostly back

About,

Well, it’s been a little while since I put out my first post. I’ve been meaning to post another one for a while, but two things were stopping me. One was that I was hitting an emotional bottom of sorts, and the other is perfectionism. I’m still thinking that I have to do this just right, and that I have to feel some sort of grand inspiration about what to post. That is just not going to happen. So here I am, imperfect, uninspired, and mostly back from my emotional bottom.

As for my emotional bottom. I realized that I was not emotionally sober, though I was not drinking, my alcoholic thinking had taken over. I have not been going to as many meetings since Covid hit (ok I was down to one a week), and for me that is not enough. It may be enough for others but, as I’ve heard in the rooms, not enough meetings had left me “stark raving sober”. I have realized that I have to prioritize my sobriety more, both physical and emotional. I am going to more meetings and working with my sponsor. I had been reworking the steps with her ever so slowly for some time and have now resolved to pick up the pace. I am also trying to take better care of myself by getting enough sleep, eating well, drinking enough water, and exercising etc.

Now for perfectionism, it is so sneaky. The more I look at my life the more I realize that perfectionism has stopped me from doing so many things, especially new things. It acts like it’s my friend, “hey, I’m just trying to stop you from making a fool out of yourself”. I don’t like to look like I don’t know what I’m doing, if feels way too vulnerable. Guess what though, I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m learning as I go, and that pretty much goes for everything in my life. I may end up looking foolish, and that might feel kind of terrible. As I’ve learned recently though, feelings don’t kill you. Feelings pass and are soon replaced by other feelings, so the bad ones don’t last forever even if my mean old brain tells me they will.

So anyway, here I am again two whole posts in and hoping to post again soon. Or shall I just say see you soon? Yes. See you soon, and also yes, that is a threat.

PS You don’t need to be inspired, just do the thing. Whatever the thing you want to do is, do it. Do the thing!

First Post

About, ,

I’m starting this blog because I’m a sober alcoholic who likes to write and wants to live a creative life vs. living the status quo. There is nothing wrong with the status quo per se, I’ve just tried and tried to do it and failed. Plus, I hate it. There I’ve said it. What I’ve been doing hasn’t been working for me. I’ve gotten sober, sane-ish, but work wise my life has been fairly miserable. At the end of the day, I’ve found I had nothing left, not for creativity, not for anything else. I ended up in a terrible state of burn out.

I quit my job of six years last year then I tried a different job, then another, and another, and another. I felt like crying most of the time. I needed to change my life. I needed the stability of that six-year job that was the devil I knew while getting sober. I needed to concentrate on doing the work that needed to be done in order to make a start that way. Now that I have been sober for a while (six years) and though I know there will always be work to do in order to maintain sobriety, I’ve come to believe that this is part of the work.

I’m now doing gig work as I still need to make money, I can control my schedule though and work less hours. I am still trying to figure out some side hustles to bring in more money for financial stability, but as of this moment it’s working out. I realize that I’m lucky to be able to do this and that other people are not so lucky, that they may have to have that job or two or three in order to survive. I am going to make the most of my luck however, and work to live a creative life.

One of the things that I am doing to change my life right now is to start this blog. I have been meaning to do it for almost a year now or thinking really hard about it at least. I am also reading the book “The Artist’s Way” by Julia Cameron. I have started to do some of the work in it, and I believe it’s helping. I’m trying to sketch a couple of times a week and not get too perfectionistic about it which is very hard but perfectionism sucks. Really, it does, it sucks the joy out of everything. I’m also taking a Graphic Design Course. This is a lot of stuff I realize, but it’s all for me and I deserve it. You deserve to do stuff for you too, stuff for your “soul”, creative stuff.

I’m going to include one of my sketches below in order to battle perfectionism. It is far from perfect but I’m proud of it. Why? Because I did it, I took the time and did it, and that makes it pretty nice.